So in the clause "should any of my apprentices turn against the Order and my sodales I will be the first to strike them," if someone else happens to strike them first, I've broken the Code and can be Marched? Or is it that only some parts of the Code are to be read absolutely literally, and others are figurative?
Edit: Actually, let me take a different angle. I know you think the word "thereby" is critical to the whole interpretation of that clause. Why do you think that? Is it because the alternative is unworkable? Or is there something written in the sourcebooks somewhere that tells us that?
It is hard to argue with someone who can't tell when I've conceded a point. I am sure our paths will cross again, most likely when I catch you bullying someone else whose ideas you don't like.
Exactly, read HoH:TL p53: "The oath demand the parens be the first to attack an outcast magus. If the parens is dead or in Final Twilight the inheritor acquires this duty. .... However it is rare that the inheritor strikes down the outcast. This leaves them liable to prosecution. The slayer can charge the inheritor with failing in their lawful duty and settle the case by acquiring the inheritance rights. In 1220 this convention is so established that no one normally bothers with any legal formality. The inheritor also inherits any debts the outcast had."
This establishes that if an apprentice of the magus is killed by someone else then yes the parens, or his inheritor is punished for his lapse. It establishes the conventional fine the inheritor would be fined for failing in his duty (everything that he inherited from the outcasts parens plus having to make good all the outcasts debts). It doesn't clearly state how much punishment a parens who is still alive would get for allowing someone else to be the first hunting the apprentice, probably a fine and having to clear the debts, but the principle is there in black and white.
So yes, each Code should be taken completely as written, the explanation text to each of them clearly shows that, the example from other books quoted clearly show that as the examples I've given on mundane interference show why 'Thereby' is the crux from HoH:TL, HoH:S, GotF and others have given from L&L. When every single source seems to be saying the same thing, that is enough evidence for me.
[Edit: There are some parts of the code, for example casting out where the explanation clarifies that exception can be made. For example not all high crimes lead to automatic casting out and marching, the Guerici and the Tribunal can recommend a lesser sentence at their discretion.]
You're right, it says that. Wow. Talk about unworkable.
So say I'm a Jerbiton magus in Iberia. My filius goes to Normandy and breaks the Code by trying to kill a magus. The Normandy Tribunal renounces my filius and I hurry to Normandy in a panic to fulfill my duty. Unfortunately I arrive too late, and a Hoplite has slain my filius. I am now a Code breaker and can be Renounced myself. And if my pater is still alive, he can be Renounced for being at the wrong place. With one crime, an entire family tree of magi is wiped out.
Our permute the scenario a little and say the crime occurs in Novgorod, and my filius is dead before I even hear about it.
This is the absurdity to which a totally literal reading of the Code leads. Why would anyone train an apprentice when to do so carries the risk of execution for something he might do 30 years from now?
Because the standard punishment is only wealth for failing in this duty, yes it could be being renounced but that would only occur in my games if you have made loads of enemies, so much so that the entire Tribunal was waiting for an excuse to get rid of you. The reason for this is that breaking the Code doesn't automatically lead to being renounced, it is for the Tribunal to decide and politics and precedent play a role there. No one would want to be executed for their own apprentice messing up so they would be lenient on other magi parens whose apprentices mess up.
Why train apprentices at all? Part of that is the prestige, as many games you can only be an archmage if you've trained apprentices. Then there is the assistance the apprentice can provide for projects where you need help to boost the lab total. But mostly because it is because magi should be very careful who they select as an apprentice and should mold their character properly while in those formative years.
So I don't see this as absurd, but about magi taking responsibility, and if being too slow due to distance leads to a vis fine, that's a small price to pay for the danger of an outcast having to be handled by another tribunal who need to organize the hunt, rustle up vis to support the hunt etc. Talk about compensation for dangers in solving the problem for the parens.
In our last session, out of sheer desparation to get a rival Verditius (squatting on "our land") marched, or to at least provide justification for our Quaesitor to take "such actions as become necessary", my Verditius strip-mined the code and found the words "I swear to take apprentices". "Has he taken any apprentices?", he asked the rival's venditore. "Not to my knowledge", the venditore replied. "Ha!" shouted the Verditius to his covenmates, "We've got the bastard! Now will you march him?"
Of course, around the table we understood that to be a desparate act of a man willing to frame his rival by recourse to any concocted pseudo-legal reasoning possible. But it was the only thing we could prove at the time.
Still, we got the goods on him when we broke into his sanctum. And when we broke the session, we were either waiting for his submission under threat of repeated Wizard War, or we were going to jump him with everything we had and trust to our Quaesitor to make the problem go away.
Technically, yes. But this is a political question, not part of some unthinking computer script. Is the elder magus known and respected? Perhaps the Tribunal writes to him, explaining the situation, and stands ready to provide assistance or await his champion. If another hothead hoplite jumps in and does for the filius first, perhaps the Tribunal (should anyone actually bother trying to bring a case) considers the hoplite's actions those of a de facto champion.
If the parens is unknown, or his whereabouts or status is unknown, then the Tribunal may invoke some long-forgotten precedent by sending a faux letter to some arbitrary address. And with no contact received, they officially sanction another champion (I like the idea of the Tribunal calling three times for the parens to step forward and declare himself, and upon the magus not declaring himself the Tribunal rules that they could not contact him).
Perhaps some Tribunals consider the "first blow" to be the casting of the first vote in determining guilt or innocence. Or perhaps the first blow is for the parens to be the one who announces the march. There are a number of ways that a society of very learned people can interpret the code that binds them. They're not 12-year old Call of Duty players. Well, not all of them.
I think the only time something like this, attempting to wipe out a lineage through the chaining of responsibilities, would actually be invoked is where someone has the stated aim of doing so.
I'd have just gone straight onto wizards war myself, as during that time it's legal to burn down his sactum and lab even if you don't kill him (as long as he's a loner which from your description he sounds like). If he survives and comes back he'll think twice about setting up in the same place again.
I have to side with Andrew on this one - requiring the parens to really be the first to strike down his filius is absurd. If anything, I'd imagine such a demand will allow the parens, or his inheritor, to charge any rash hoplite for striking down the filius before the parens got around to do it himself, thus depriving him of the possibility of carrying out his Hermetic duty; allowing the hoplite to charge the parens for not following on an act the hoplite depcrived him of an opportunity to carry out is absurd.
I agree ritualizing this requirement to e.g. requiring the parens to be the one to declare the Wizard's March or titulary head it is, I think, a much more reasonable interpretation.
On the matter at hand, however - I'd note that TL also says that the "lest [faerie] vengeance catch my sodales" is the criteria for judging the fay-molestation clause, so that fits. On the other hand, the "lest I imperil my soul and the souls of my sodales" is not relevant - any dealing with demons is prohibited by the demon-clause. So it appears to me the matter is really wide open to valid interpretation either way. I think it's best to leave it rather vague, and indeed the entire Traditionalist/Transitionalist idea seems to revolve around the fluidity of interpreting this section.
What happens here is that this point is not strongly enforceable. As such, everybody can strike down the felon. The one that does strike him down can claim a part of the spoils (at least) if not all of them.
The Parens has the duty to join in the hunt for the wrongdoer, and out of tradition most will do just that, but he will not be liable of a hermetic crime if he is not the first one to track the dude down. The "penalty" he suffers is not having a right to the spoils if another kills the dude first. Easy and enforceable, which is the key to the whole issue here.
Still, I would presume that 99% of the magi of the OoH keep a permanent AC to their past apprentices in their sancta, so in those cases it would be rather easy for them to track the dudes down.
The point is that the Parens be personally responsible for any apprentice they turn loose on the Order, not just during apprenticeship.
If that apprentice grows up to be a liability, it's on the one who taught them. So that Parens had better make some effort, not say "I'm in the middle of experiments - first thing next season, I promise..." Whether the "striking" is by their hand, by their proxy, or merely their condemnation is a matter of semantics.
Absolutely. I cannot imagine a prosecution on the basis of failure through no fault of their own. It is incumbent on the parens to make every effort to immediately destroy the malefactor. If someone gets thoer first by swift action of virtue of geography they are hardly at fault. The loss of face would be very grave though. They would have already taken a major blow to credibility and failure to recoup any in this matter would be a 'once in a lifetime opportunity to make ammends' lost.
The thing with demons and fae is explained in HoH:TL with the wording of 'deals' and 'molest'.
Any dealing with demons imperils the soul, and so would break the law, but 'not molest the fae, lest their vengeance catch my sodales' would not just require fae attacking other magi but an investigation that shows the cause the fae took offence at was unjustified.
The sourcebook says outright that if you came into conflict with the fae defending your property or life then that is a valid defence.
I always find discussions of the code of Hermes to be quite entertaining. Mainly because these out of game discussions probably sound exactly like the debates that should go on ingame surrounding a tribunal.
What I think most modern players (and story guides) forget is that the Code of Hermes is not some modern codified legal system presided over by professional judges and decided by impartial, uninterested juries. No, trials in the order are political affairs with petty rivalries, traded favors, and self interest deciding things as much, if not more, as a âproperâ interpretation of the code.
To me the statement that best describes how the code should be enforced is right out of the main book ââŚso few magi have been willing to argue that charging into a farie area spell blazing, stealing large amounts of farie property, and retreating to your covenant, counts as molestation.â Of course thatâs molestation but virtually no mage is going to call it that because they all want to be able to do it.
Of course some mages will argue against it, but most will merely cite the bit about âlest their vengeance catch my sodalesâ and say itâs all ok until someone gets hurt. Itâs not what that quote means but itâs what most mages (and player) want it to mean so thatâs how it generally getâs interpreted.
That only applies to a vocal minority. Most people I know still rely on old books as cannon. Why? Because we paid money for them, and we consider them valid until something replaces it. In fact, every single ArM5 game I have ever played successfully relies heavily on 4th edition cannon and concepts. My entire saga is based on the 4th edition concept of House Flambeau. Only a select few adhere to the idea of âArM5 onlyâ, and they tend to be people who had the opportunity to write ArM5 cannon. If and when I ever get to write for the line, I will be one of the few in the old cannon camp, saying âthey make me write it this way, but personally I like the old way betterâ. To me, the genius of ArM5 are the vast improvements in the rules; NOT cannon.
And, to be fair, you are asking about past cannon, specifically trying to find out if code rulings are looser now than before. The references to old cannon demonstrate that it was the old interpretations that were looser, not more strict. The differences in opinion are based upon perspective, not any changes made in cannon.
Oh, andâŚ
Not even remotely. AG has been playing since second edition, was a play-tester for ArM5, and wrote the Flambeau chapter for Societas. As you may imagine, I went berserk nuts on him for that (back on the Berklist). I totally made an ass of myself, and I apologized. I now consider AG a friend an ally. However, I still think his Flambeau revisions were wrong (on a deep personal and philosophical level that I donât care to rehash right now). In this case, I think his interpretation is wrong simply because it is and has always been a YVMV issue. Nothing changed in the law, and if you interpreted it one way before it is still a valid interpretation. The disagreement, it seems, is that people think that there currently isnât (or previously wasnât) room for these interpretations.
So Andrew, you were not wrong before and you are not wrong now. Likewise, people with the opposite PoV are not wrong now nor were they wrong before. What is wrong is claiming that either point of view was ever an absolute interpretation of the Code. Which is not to say I am accusing you of that. It just seems that this is what each camp tends to be doing, a perception, not necessarily the fact.
Personally, though, I donât think you basic legal theories are sound, and if you ever had to go to court I recommend a lawyer. Me, I litigate pro-se all the time (and I usually win). I know that the law is what the law says. Personal opinions, interpretations, and theory & spirit have no significance in and of themselves. These can be used as tools of rhetoric to gain sympathy and disrupt the prosecutor, but in and of themselves they have no weight. Law is like computer code, it means only what it says and everything that it says. Law is mechanical, unfeeling and coldly logical. Sometimes the law sucks, and sometimes law is wrong. But that doesnât mean a thing. The judge is bound by the letter, not the spirit, of the law.
Having said that, the Code of Hermes is a very poor example of a law code. It is overly authoritarian in its design, yet overly libertarian in its enforcement and execution. It is as flawed as any human institution.
Whoa Nellie! I am sorry if I gave the impression I was telling people it's wrong to interpret the Code loosely. What I'm bent out of shape about is the appearance of people telling me there is no room in canon for interpreting it strictly, or "proactively" as I would say.
You can construct strawman arguments either way saying how the Order would fall apart if the Other Side had it their way.
Well first I would be more careful and consistent about how I construct my arguments, and present them one at a time instead of three or four at once.
I think the Code is a pretty good representation of a medieval oath. The whole institution of law is totally different now than in the RL Middle Ages; in the US we can mostly thank five hundred and fifty years of English legal reforms for that. I agree with your statement about the Code, but again crummy laws are IMO consistent with the period.
Then it's even more inexpicable why he only now is awakening to the fact that his interpretation of this section of the code is not widely accepted, much less what is considered "canon" by many.
And the duration of his playing the game still doesn't address whether he's done it in relative isolation, which is the only possible explanation I can think of.
(And I don't blame you for your reaction to Societatus - not ims either.)
What I'm awakening to is how one-sided the treatment of "mundane interference" is in the 5th ed. Tribunal books, and how your justification for your interpretation is based on one word in the Code.
Sorry if I was part of that claiming, like Andrew I was enjoying the discussion and trying to explain my understanding of the issue. I think I was approaching it from the sense of "What does the law actually say? What explanation text comes with it? What precedents do we have in the other texts that support my own interpretation of the words in the law?" I even went so far as to point out some precedents that went against my own point of view to be fair.
Sometimes it did come over like that, but we all get carried away in the fun of arguing our point of view, so it's forgivable, we're all here cos we enjoy the game and the debate after all,
I was taking a look through the covenants book as well yesterday and there are a references p57 to how creating wealth magically can attract attention and how the Order frowns on mundane interference which is why covenants should try to keep such 'dubious moneymaking schemes' quiet. Added to that it gives a comment that 'Several of the Tribunals' have limited the amount of wealth creation to 2 pounds of silver a year to avoid inflation by dumping wealth into the system suddenly, which is pretty much the only case law on the original discussion (paying the noble too much).
I get that you think the Code is one sided in the treatment of mundane interference but we are talking about a game, and if mundane interference on it's own was a crime then every interaction with the mundanes would be a potential cause for a case against the magi. It would lead (in my imagining the situation) to magi being stuck only in forests and deep in regios never daring to approach civilization, without servants and surviving on the products of hunting by whatever animals they could enchant to serve them as guards.
That wouldn't be fun as a game at all, and some players I've known verge too much towards that already merinita and bjornaer players especially. After all it would be the best way to avoid nobles demanding tax and services, to avoid the church investigating and threatening with bonfires. But there have been so many stories of covenants in the hearts of cities and plugged into them controlling businesses and having huge finicial impact on the community in 3rd, 4th and 5th edition that there has to be a huge amount of leaway to allow such stories too.
