“I will have one vote at Tribunal and I will use it prudently. I will respect as equal the votes of all others at Tribunal.”
From HoH:TL:
The provision also demands that magi use their vote prudently. Traditionalists interpret this as a duty to vote strictly according to an honest legal judgment. Voting to convict or acquit against a magus’s better legal judgment is a high crime. Anyone exposed as having accepted a bribe or other deal for his vote may be charged. The rigor with which this provision is enforced varies greatly.
Founding a new covenant is hardly a case serious enough to merit scrutiny from anyone (more yet considering there are few to none quaesitores on Rhine), but I wanted to leave it here that depending on who you are talking with and where you are voting, buying votes may well be illegal. Might even be part of Rhine's peripheral code, since Rhine is a traditionalist Tribunal. ; ]
It's reasonable, but unless we sweeten the deal for them, I'd not bet on the probability of success. I don't see Oculus as being desperate to sell (but maybe Regulus finds something on his research that suggests they are in high demand for vis to pay off a previous debt? In that case they could be desperate for vis, either a sizeable sale or as a gift).
The part about being in good terms with a covenant goes both ways, we also want to be in good terms with a strong mercantile covenant. Without a strong tie to them, it doesn't seem farfetched that Oculus requests something extra in exchange for their favor. It could be a story.... but it can easily be a few pawns. But I don't expect "prospect of future interactions" to cut it.
I think it's worthy, but I'd rather have a clear picture of the intended use before starting any design. I am failing to see value unless we want to dabble into transport and/or trade on the Birse/Rhine as an additional source of income for the covenant (I'm not against it, if that's the intention on the long run).
As with all things Hermetic, someone's gotta find out without resorting to Code breaking measures, then be willing to spend quite a bit of political capital to bring the matter up. Not saying it's not possible, just that it's highly unlikely in a situation like this. But I s'pose I see such 'payments' as part and parcel to life in the Order. Everyone knows they're bribes, but nobody does anything about them because let's face it, there's money to be made.
I dunno, I guess I see it differently? f you were asking someone to make you a Pilum wand, yeah, no, it's just another order. But an order this size is a big honking deal. I mean come on, you're making 60+ pawns in profit. That's quite literally as much as a lot of mages will make in almost two decades. So yeah, this is the sort of thing that you likely only pull off once or twice in a career, and it's going to make a name for you. And we all know how much the Verdi love this sort of one-upsmanship.
That said, I think if nothing else, the mercantile angle is a good one. I'm actually working on a companion for @Vortigern that is a Venetian capo style character who I think could be quite useful in that regard. But I digress.
Yes... trade... I mean nobody said Belisarius had to pay for the goods that we end up trading, right? Seriously though, I agree that we'll want to clearly want to figure out what this would be for. Besides it simply being awesome that is.
As an aside, I think we will want to figure out how the covenant plans on supporting the new influx of magi. Gonna need to get some more staff, and consequently, funds.
About the magical ship, it comes down to a few things. What do we want it for? Can the covenant afford it? If so, what level of priority do we give it?
Which reminds me that we need more vis sources to be fleshed out (contributions of the troupe are welcome). And that I need to create a tracker for how much vis the covenant has through the years.
I've made a proposal for the vis sources a couple months ago, but it's still on a preliminary stage. I was hoping for input of other people, specially in regards to location, but I do have ideas on how to distribute the vis in terms of flavors and amount. I can go ahead with it if needed be.
For a tracker I was thinking that a shared spreadsheet might be the easiest way to organize.