Hi folks,
Does anyone remember a pace in cannon where either a tribunal or the wider order has ruled that a magus cannot be an official member of more than one covenant?
I know they can have a guest or ex-member according to a charter, but are there rules in the setting?
We're discussing in a pbp game and I though the wider brains-trust might know.
Cheers and thanks,
IBT
There's nothing in the Oath about this, which means it is up to the Peripheral Code or other Grand Tribunal rulings.
Traditionally, the charter of a covenant includes some kind of loyalty clause, so that once you sign it and become a member, you can't really join a second covenant because you can't serve two masters. But, in theory, there's nothing that would prevent a Regional Tribunal from explicitly allowing magi to be members in more than one covenant, especially if it served some larger purpose.
See, for example, the Transylvania tribunal, where the nature of covenants is wildly different from the rest of the order and described by Transylvania's peripheral code.
In other words, if you want magi to be able to join more than one covenant, that could be a clause in your local peripheral code.
I suspect this is a local tribunal issue. Transylvania has rules that either effectively or directly require single covenant membership. Traditionally, one is a member of one covenant at most.
I suspect a dedicated covenant would not accept that a member of another covenant as well.
I don't see how being a member of multiple covenants would violate the Oath.
However, I doubt there is such a ruling. I'd be surprised to discover it has ever come up.
I don't recall seeing it as part of the PC, but covenants invariably have that loyalty clause as Doctorcomics pointed out. If neither covenant has that in their covenant, then you are good to go.
I think 4e had such a ruling, perhaps in the Wizard's Grimoire? However, it might have been the bit about you can only change your lab so many times in a year and had to declare it with proper signage. I might be mixing those up.
I'm pretty sure that was about sancta, which show up in the Code. Membership in a covenant would be a whole other thing.
IMHO, basically a covenant is nothing more than a contract. If you ask "could a magus contract with several societies ?" the answer is in principle yes.
Some (or many) covenant charters have exclusivity provisions in their charter, and perhaps some tribunals rule that you could not, but I personnally don't see that as genrally forbidden.
Loyalty should not be mistaken for subordination or exclusivity. One could be "free but loyal", doing what pleases him, while keeping his word. For instance, in our time you could absolutely have two jobs and be equally loyal to both employers. But you could not (normally) work for both at the same time of the day or week (because it would divert your attention and you would only pretend that you work for one of them) and you could (generally) not work as an employee for competitors as it is considered disloyal (but notice that freelancers do that commonly without a second thought).
Same goes for covenants : if you are member of two, you must fulfill your duties for both, for instance take part in the council of both, take part in both Aegis ritual and possibly give service seasons in both... the problem is to know if you can cope with that, not if you may swear two oaths.
Of course, conflicting interests would raise problems...
In the specific case being discussed, it is a hierarchical issue- a single covenant is establishing "child" covenants that it does not want to be chapterhouses, but the leaders of these covenants would be members of a single covenant as well to keep the overall group united. In this way it is more like being a part of both the national party and the local party organization in politics (at least in the US, I'm not sure how well this analogy translates)
Perhaps this can be easily resolved by forming a Societas rather than a "super-covenant." Everyone is a member of their own covenant, but also a member of the over-arching Societas. This sidesteps any concern over belonging to more than one covenant, and a Societas can have any membership requirements it's members agree upon, including a loyalty oath.
There's Fudarus/Exspectatio as a counter example.
As an odd case, the covenants of Transylvania are pretty strictly agreements - not locations. Members are of particular Houses and inclinations, and agree to certain (some seemly arbitrary) obligations and restrictions.
For a group of magi living together toward a communal end, they have oppidum, mostly (always?) members of multiple covenants. Oppidum are nominally temporary arrangements, even if hundreds of years old.
Here is a case of covenant members living with members of other covenants in a community, generally in such a way as to not conflict (although conflicts between covenant and oppidum requirements might arise).
I'm sure I read something somewhere (not Against the Dark - probably HoH:TL, but I can't find it now) about all Tremere being automatically members of Coeris, but being able to automatically drop that status if their covenant required single membership then take it up again the moment they left.
That's in Against the Dark, IMO.
Ah, AtD p15, column 2 & 3.
Thank you all!
The Transylvania Tribunal is limited on the number of covenants that can exist (since the schism). So everyone is a member of one of the Covenants listed eventhough they never go there.
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Ah. That would explain why I couldn't find it - could have sworn it was an older memory than that.