Questions of Residency

Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: Light of Andorra
41

That...is...AWESOME!!!!!
How did you do that?
None of the towers are empty. It s just that the occupants have not een determined and the masters have first dips. Solomon claimed his tower. Vibria gets a tower if she wants it. That leaves...
Well, I suppose at least one large tower is empty after all :laughing:

42

Updated version:

I'm visual too. I needed this to help me figure out what was what.

43

I just opened the image in Paint Shop Pro, added the labels, and saved as a JPEG file.

So the real question is what tower does Vibria want (or does she even want a tower?

44

Mark the two small towers in the front of the keep as Kesara and Arachne. Kesara's lab is under ground, the tower is just houses an entrance to that section. Aracne is somewhat the same, but her spot is more complicated.

45

So basically there's the tower in the upper left and the one in the lower right. Vibria gets the one of her choice (if she wants a tower), and Lucas gets the one left over. Is that right?

(I'm going to hold off doing a revised drawing until I can deal with all the empties.)

46

I think you mean upper right and lower left, correct?

47

What he said!

48

No.
Lucas has agreed to serve at Sa Dragonera. If stationed at Arans, he would occupy one of the two Mercere towers and Fedora the other.

49

Right, but that was before I discovered the Redcap charter. The reason he agreed to Sa Dragonera was the streamlined journeyman process. Now that we have this information, we really need to retcon, because Sa Dragonera might not have even been presented as an option to him.

50

How do you want that to fall out? In other words, what is truth at this point. Had I (the player) known at the time what Lucas (the character) certainly did, I would have had Lucas simply request admission under the Mercere agreement, with no mention of Sa Dragonera.

So, are we asserting that my ignorance will be assumed to be Lucas's ignorance (which strains credulity IMO) and that he requested to be assigned to Sa Dragonera when he didn't have to, or are we saying that Lucas was admitted based on a neutral request and then informed that he would be assigned to Sa Dragonera?

I just want to know what to tell House Mercere if they ask me why I'm going to Sa Dragonera.

51

Like I said, I think we need to retcon the whole situation and start from the beginning now that we know the agreement in place.

52

I call Shenanigans.
This was all discussed openly several times. several times.
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I mean seriously, I was practically beating you guys over the head with this.

53

All I can say is that my understanding was that my three options were:

  1. To not join the covenant, and stay as a Permanent Guest in the Mercere Lodge;
  2. To join the covenant in Andorra and wait seven months as a Pledge; or
  3. To go to Sa Dragonera and get fast tracked to Journeyman.

At no time was I presented with the option of joining the covenant in Andorra and getting fast tracked for a different reason (i.e., the Mercere agreement).

Here is the basis for my reasoning, and why I don't think Shenanigans is appropriate.

You referred to my potential status as a "reserved member." That implies something less than a full member.

Here you noted that the Mercere's had a right to station a Mercere magus of their choosing in the Redcap Quarter, as a Protected Guest (i.e., not in the Andorran part of the covenant, and not as a Journeyman). I took this to mean, not in the covenant, but in the Lodge that was placed on covenant grounds. Yes, you said that I might become a member. But you also noted that House Mercere would pay my expenses until I became a member. That implies some seasons between the petition and the membership. However, under the terms of the Mercere agreement, acceptance would have been immediate.

Here you directly stated that my option was to directly petition the council, who might require me to wait as a Pledge for seven seasons, and require three services of me, and who had to accept me by unanimous vote. This, in fact, was not true. If I petitioned the council, then under the terms of the agreement, they would have had to accept me (or demand that two other magi be presented for consideration).

You specifically said Lucas was a Pledge and would have to wait seven seasons and had Carmen bring this up with Fedora, despite the terms of the agreement. What was I supposed to think?

Here you said that Lucas would be unable to perform the exceptional services and so would have to wait as a Pledge for seven months. Again, this was not true.

Again, you implied that the option under the Mercere agreement was to not be a member of the covenant but instead support the Redcaps in the Mercere Lodge.

In the end, I think it was perfectly reasonable for me to say that I had no idea that I had the option to skip the Pledge period under the terms of the Mercere agreement, and that Shenanigans are not appropriate.

54

Yep, I agree with Trogdor. He (the player) was misled as to the options.

55

I'm not saying any of the confusion was intentional, by any means. I think it was just one of those things that happens when all communication is written and so much has to go unsaid. Misunderstandings like this are an unfortunate byproduct of PBP gaming.

56
  • It will be a pain in the @$$ to retcon all that roleplaying, and track down where to roll back confidence points.
  • Lucas emphatically stated he wated to reside at Sa Dragonera regardless of being fast tracked or not
  • Carmen was willing to fast track him and station him in Arans. The whole argument arose because she said he had the right to stay there if he wanted and Solomon countered that they have the right to stay where we tell them.
  • I was beating you guys over the head with bricks about this.
  • That Mercere agreement was never finalized, but if you want to rely upon it, we have the right to examine three candidates and choose the one that agrees to serve at Sa Dragonera. Wanting to serve there right off the bat means we waive the right to examine two more candidates.
  • Trogdor, you said that you wanted a spot at Sa Dragonera, and that whole council session was me bending over backwards to enable you to do that. You designed a cool set up for your quarter and everything. You will have to scrap all of that and trim your lb upkeep by a lot.
  • I would rather "Alter the Bargain" that retcon. Something like Mercere officials come to visit and inspect, they learn that Lucas is living in an island paradice and not on post and they blow a fuse, so Lucas is forced to reside at Arans. If that is what you, the player, really want to have for your character as opposed to the healthy island spot.
  • You guys drive me nuts. I practically got a t-shirt saying "what about the Mercere agreement?" and wore it to council meetings every day. I took out ads on TV and radio, hired a skywriter, put banner ads on all your favorite web sites, paid models to stand on corners handing out fliers. GAAAAAKKK*
57

From the semi-outside, I found the whole discussion quite entertaining :slight_smile:

Trogdor: Maybe lucas does not want to be trated as spoecial, and sacred or anything like that. He has been treated like that all his life by the other merceres and he is sick of it. He KNOWS he is special and needs to carry on the tradition of the founder, but man they are treating him with so much CARE that he cannot stand it anymore. As such moving to Sa Dragonera and be treated as harshly as all the new applicants might be something he WANTS to endure to prove he is capoable of handling it instead of getting the cozy ultra-favourable treatment ONCE AGAIN for no real reason. He is not a kid!

Just making an ad hoc reasoning of why he could have decided to go to Sa Dragonera even knowing the privileges he could have invoked. 8)

58

In the end, I'm happy enough to be in Sa Dragonera. We don't need a retcon (which would be a huge pain) and we don't need to bend over backwards for anything. Yes, I would have done things differently had I known the parameters of the Mercere agreement ahead of time. But as Marko says, I do have a cool setup planned in Mallorca. and it would be a shame to not get to play with that for a while.

I guess the spot that made me tender was the whole not having a right to come back to Andorra part. Yes, I realize that if Lucas spends several years in Sa Dragonera his petition to return will almost certainly be granted. But somehow it's different when the decision isn't yours. That "almost certainly" part echoes in your mind. PCs hate being powerless, and I suffer from that failure as much as anyone. I guess there was a part of me that just wanted to have a right to be in Andorra. And I suppose I was also smarting from what seemed like a blind-siding to me.

Ultimately this all arose because of a misunderstanding. Marko, you were indeed beating us over the head with 'the Mercere Agreement.' No doubt about that. Unfortunately, each of us had a different interpretation of what exactly that agreement said, so we were all arguing about different things.

Let's just say that Lucas decided he wanted to go to Sa Dragonera as much to flex his muscles with House Mercere as anything and get out from under their thumb for just a little bit. He has been in a Mercere covenant since he was gauntleted. That seems reason enough to want to get away for a little bit. And let's not forget that three years in Mallorca counts for one of your services for being made master. That's a definite draw for him too. And who wouldn't like to live in an island paradise?

So I apologize for making a big stink about this. It was not my intention to cause trouble so soon after joining. As I said, from a player standpoint there's a lot Sa Dragonera has going for it. So I will happily send Lucas to Mallorca and hopefully set this kerfuffle to rest.

59

That's a nice angle too. I'll have to fold that into Lucas's reasoning.

60

I understand where you're coming from. All I can say at this point is I see no reason why Vocis (at a minimum) wouldn't support Lucas's transfer after a few years in Mallorca, especially if he's going to facilitate our book trade in his role as Librarian. Add in that a few of the masters wanted him in Andorra from the start, and it's essentially a sure thing. Not the same as an actual sure thing, I know, but it's the best I can do. :confused: