Part of the saga that I'd like to include is Hermes Mercatorius & Hermes Furis, from Transforming Mythic Europe, pp. 122-3. The idea is that House Mercere has an awful lot of money and loans it out.
What this means is that the Silver Consensus is enforced, covenants that need cash are expected to talk to a Redcap, and a deal can be reached if a covenant has monetary debts, or desires to expand using mundane labor. Occasionally covenants refuse to pay debts, and House Mercere must reluctantly hire Flambeau and Tytalus magi to show such covenants the error of their ways...
Thompsja I'm not sure if this suite the over all thematic of the Thebean tribunal where it is expected that every mage and redcap do some work for the greater good of the tribunal.
(At last I interpret it that way that people who gain to many shard and even refuse to do work to neutralize them will lose their tribunal membership earlier or later see TSE 34)
I personal think ursurer or even worse people that try to get their money back with force are not welcome in the tribunal.
From TSE 28
Edit: What do you think happen to someone who lend money to different magus as soon he have a single shard? Do you think he can stay in the tribunal when the people owning him money all want him out?
House Mercere loans to mundanes as well as other Magi. So we may have to deal with the fallout when some noble reneges on his debt. I want to introduce some ideas for stories in the game - hooks that we can use. The title of the sub-board is "what if we joined them" - more interactions between the Order and the mundane world.
I think it’s a fine idea, especially as House Mercere moves into lending money to the mundane world. Are they finding a golden opportunity or getting in over their heads? Only time (and stories) will tell.
As for lending money to magi, it’s a democracy, not communism. We want to work together for the greater good, of course. But everyone still needs to make their own way. And if a few need a push from House Mercere, well then that’s their business. So long as House Mercere isn’t ruinous with it’s rates (which, I grant you, moneylenders tended to be back then), I don’t see how they’re violating the greater good.
Besides, there needs to be some conflict for stories to work.
What your talking now and in the first posting are 2 complete different issues. Lending money to the mundane following different rules then lending something to a other magus.
As the rules of interfering with the mundanes are teared down the rule for not spending to much silver will also fall.
Although I think the whole open up in the Thebes tribunal is done in the mind to strengthen the defenses against outside threats and to improve the relationship with the mundane.
With this assumption I think using force against any ruler will be frowned up within the Tribunal.
Also what would the Church say, who for now hold back on declaring our magic as heretic, when they learn our mages attack a ruler just for monetary gain?
From RoP:D 65 expect Kings and maybe other ruler to have a Commanding Aura given by god and so they have MR that you first have to overcome if you want to manipulate or even attack them with magic.
It might sound like I'm oposit to lending money, after all its also a sin acording to the christian teaching of this time, but its actual ok with me I just want to point out what will come up if it is discussed in the tribunal or what could be the fallout if you try to force the return of the money.
Personal I think its the people trading over the sea that will be the people who most likely try to find new investors or lend money.
On a side note in case no one saw this already in the covenant of Xylinites there is a Pious Criamon who If I understand it correct have finished the path of body. (That means together with Paulos there at last 2 master of a Criamon Path in the tribunal)
Although more interesting then him will be Trasaricus the nephew of the killed Emperor Alexious IV Angelos. (See TSE 102)
Adauli, I'm sorry if I wasnt' clear. The setting idea suggested that a covenant had used CrTe magic to create wealth. A tribunal decision in Normandy allowed House Mercere to do some good with it. Later, at a Grand Tribunal, it was agreed that destroying the wealth would interfere with commerce so much, that it should continue. So now House Mercere loans money throughout Europe, both to Hermetics and mundanes. It has financed cathedrals and crusades.
As a result that wealth was created, and caused so much headaches, it can't be created again on a huge scale. So the Silver Consensus is in place. Hermetics needing cash can go to Mercere and get it.
Not everyone in the order is going to be thrilled about our experiment with working closely with mundanes. I'm glad that you're OK with this plot point.
I like the way this interpretation of House Mercere parallels the Templars (And we all know how that ended for the Templars!) They came into a lot of cash, and ended up becoming international bankers because of it. It gave them great power, but also great enemies. The church was convinced to turn a blind eye to charges of usury for a long time, but eventually they got a better deal from King Phillip of France and turned on the Templars. IF House Mercere wants to avoid a similar fate, they'll have to be very careful.
In my mind that's great fodder for stories. So, I'm all for including the Mercere-as-moneylenders plots in the saga. Will there be issues with the Church? You bet! But that'll have to be something that House Mercere (and I suspect we'll somehow get involved) will have to deal with.
I have several problems with this, the first is the conceit that because one covenant created too much silver the tribunal took it away and gave it to Mercere. Pretty much everything following from that as well. There is nothing to indicate that there is a fixed trans-tribunal limit on the creation of gold. Personally I think the vis spent creating the gold is more valuable than the gold, but giving mercers some sort of banking monopoly while cutting others off at the knees regarding their own incomes (both preventing magical wealth creation and preventing others from buying annuities (which is how charges of usury were avoided), just does not make sense to me.
As told I'm not against the Mercer lend money but I don't see the Thebes tribunal passing limitations in money generating just because the Mercer are allowed to lend money. Also I agree with Silveroak that the story "the magical generated silver from a covenant is used to found the mercer wealth" makes no sense at all in this tribunal because of the 3th currency that is worth equal to 1 season work of a magus per token.
As I read it, the money wasn't "given" to House Mercere, but entrusted to them to administer. The money seems to officially "belong" to the Order in general, as controlled via the Grand Tribunal. Admittedly, that gives House Mercere a lot of influence over how the money is used. (Especially since the Grand Tribunal meets so infrequently.) Perhaps individual Tribunals have been granted some power over the money as well. Regardless, it doesn't seem like the money is officially House Mercere's to do with as they please.
That leads to the question of the status of the Silver Consensus in this saga. Has the Order (or any individual tribunal) instituted any official limit on the creation of wealth?
That's undoubtedly true. But there's still incentive to pay vis to create wealth. After all, you can't buy food with vis. And that means that the risk exists that some covenant will make the decision that it wants wealth more than vis. And it doesn't take too much vis to make a whole heck of a lot of wealth.
I'd be curious to expand on just how much control Mercere is supposed to have over the money. It sounds like they're officially administrators of the Order's money, and that it isn't theirs to do with as they please. Any gains made from lending out money would benefit the Order in general and not House Mercere specifically. (Though I'm sure they're not suffering from handling the money.) That implies that covenants should likely be able to get no-interest loans and that sort of thing. I also imagine that some of the money might be used to finance magical expeditions or magical experiments.
I agree that there should not be a rule preventing magical wealth creation, though I agree that a ruling regulating magical wealth creation wouldn't be out of order. That could result in the Silver Consensus, or something else altogether.
But I don't see how this situation prevents others from buying annuities. Did I miss something in the description?
I would say on Tribunal case to case but the Order as whole see it as sub-rule of, or even covered by, the interfering with the mundanes and as already mentioned in ArM5 that is the most conflicted rule of all.
Any change or addition to " interfering with the mundanes" will for sure fail on the Order level despit our Tribunal right not try to lift this whole rule!
If it's case-by-case for each tribunal, then we should determine what Thebes has said on the issue, at least. Is there any tribunal ruling on the creation of wealth?
Thebes creates, according to the book, as few rules as possible, leaving issues up to trials, which in turn do not influence the body of laws, so it would seem to me likely that at most the tribunal would have some undefined rule against generating excessive wealth through magic, and certainly the guernicus expert witness would mention the 2 lbs/magus per year rule enforced in other tribunals when it came before the tribunal...
Its problematic to formulate something because it must clear enough that layperson can handle it as well.
That why I'm not sure if something like the following would work for the Thebes:
Any magic used with the aim to generate income need to avoid to bring any danger to the Tibunal or the order as whole.
1b) A Covenant should not be responsible for more then a local Inflation of 1% per year. Repeated offense between 2 tribunal could be punished by assigning 1 shard to every official member of this covenant.
Silveroak is right that the Theban Tribunal is written as being very light on laws. They follow the Code of Hermes, of course, and have a Peripheral Code that is described as "relatively small." During each tribunal they apparently review the cases that have come up in the past seven years and decide if any ought to be incorporated into the Peripheral Code. If a case isn't incorporated, it has no value as precedent. TSE p. 34 notes that each case is judged according to the Code (presumably including the Peripheral Code) and with no reference to previous rulings.
The real question, as I see it, is what cases, if any, regarding wealth creation have been incorporated into the Peripheral Code of Thebes. It's perfectly reasonable, in my mind, to say that no significant cases have been so incorporated. It might be that the only existing prohibition is the general prohibition in the Code against interfering with the mundane world. Or it could be that the Peripheral Code has a general prohibition against excessive creation of wealth in situations where it could cause economic turmoil. Of course, it's always possible that they have a more specific ruling incorporated into the Peripheral Code.
For my part, I tend to think that there might be a general rule incorporated against excessive wealth creation, as silveroak suggested. But I don't believe that there would be anything too specific, not in a "relatively small" corpus of laws. The Silver Consensus is probably too specific. And anything that determines culpability based on inflation rates seems far too complex. I doubt very much people in the 13th century had the economic knowledge to even calculate inflation. I'm sure they could recognize that prices went up under certain circumstances, but not exactly why. And I don't believe they had the math to determine inflation rates. Heck, they're just incorporating Arabic numbers. Calculus is centuries away.
Any trial brought for excessive wealth creation would be based on the core Code as modified by the Peripheral Code. As silveroak said, those trying the case might bring in evidence of the Silver Consensus as used in other tribunals to give some guidance, but it would be persuasive precedent only, not binding precedent. There is no binding precedent in Thebes.
That having been said, if we as a group wanted to say that something more specific had been incorporated into the Peripheral Code, we could certainly say it's so. But I don't see an agreement on that right now.
That is absolut fine with me that we only have The Peripheral code for this so far.
But the question we then have to face is how was Interfering with Mudanes adjusted in Thebes so that we can go open with our magic!
If this rule was complete dropped then we have a big problem as it would i.e. allow the Bjornaer to open attack the human settlements.
It hasn't yet. Campaigning for the change is part of the game arc. What has happened is for the idea of interference being acceptable to have gained more traction within a tribunal which is more culturally separated from the rest of the order and more connected to recent political events to where the tribunal has a consensus (at least in broad strokes) as to what should happen politically, but a code which prevents them from implementing the solutions they desire.
Well, they are probably bankers, they certainly are with vis and they also engage in mundane trade while running errands (though technically we are a half century or more away from a functional banking system- loans in this day and age are secured by selling annuities- a series of future payments for a lump sum, with no mention being made of an interest rate (which would be usury). Other functions of banks (writing letters of credit to transport value without bulky goods or coinage) are essentially unheard of. In fact the HoH points out that moneylender is a common profession for redcaps. What they don't have is any sort of monopoly within the order or ability to regulate wealth creation or development by mages or covenants.