Still an exercise of playing Devil's Advocate here. Let's get to it:
Yeah... messing with Mathilde like that was possible when she was still a little babby journeywoman forced into playing spymaster. A Lady Magister who murders armies, tears down castles, rips mountains out of the warp, and has not one but two dwarf holds in basically eternal debt to her is not the sort of person you play silly buggers with. Well, not unless you're particularly suicidal and just want to go out with a very loud bang.
Also close personal friend of the empress who is very much loved by the emperor, and has given birth to a male heir.
And is a known associate of Asalnir the Dragon Lord.
There's stupid ideas, there's slitting your own throat, and then there's this.
I think you've misunderstood the point. Yes, it is absolutely silly buggers and stupid to do so.
Unless you are in the same category. The nail that sticks out gets hammered the hardest.
So stuff like Handmaidens of the Lahmian Queen, or Dark Elf Generals. Or the personal attention of Marienburg. Hell, if Mat is a way to reach both a Dwarven King and the Imperial heir, Malekith or Lahmia herself including her as a stepping stone to some wider plan is possible. At which point, we're the ones playing silly buggers. Mat might be able to match a Handmaiden or a Dark Elf Hero unit in intrigue, but she is not yet ready to take on either the plots of the Queen of the Silver Pentacle, or Malekiths schemes. And all that is not counting what the Plotter of the Four might be up to.
Or the Council of Thirteen, if the Civil war is over. We know the Rats have reason to be pissed with us. We just don't know if they know that.
@primemountain the concern with us expanding our influence is only relevant if the Grey Order do not trust us. If they did not trust us we would be dead or on the run. The power and influence we already have is far and away greater than anything the EIC could give us. As for Wilhelmina Eike is not going to become any less her granddaughter just because we take her as an apprentice. That is how dynasties work.
Finally I think we have given enough sign that we care about our friends to any enemies who are watching. I mean that is the base assumption and we have done nothing to dissuade anyone of it.
Sure. But making moves that look like we're abusing our influence is how you erode that trust. So Mat needs to have good Diplo to present some kind of reasoning for why she wants to turn the EIC from a trading concern that also gathers rumors for her, into a pure instrument of the Grey Order.
The difference between the Director being a regular person/normal noble and a Grey Wizard matters. Mat gets away with what she does with the EIC because she's not the one running it. She's the one keeping it in check, while someone else runs it. The whole point of the EIC changes if a Grey Wizard is in charge of day to day operations.
That is the problem, from a dynastic standpoint. She already denied the inheritance to her sons, as unsuitable. The EIC and Eike are her legacy. But if Eike is going to be a Grey Wizard, then she needs to be a Wizard
first. Not a merchant.
Now maybe Wilhelmina is fine with that. That would be great. But if she isn't, if she doesn't want the EIC to be run by a Wizard, even her own blood, then that's a problem. Because the thing with Wizards is, they don't have kids that often, comparatively, and their kids are at higher risk of being Wizards themselves.
So if the line ends with Eike, what then? How does she secure her legacy? Or does she trust a new Wizard Eike to figure that out when the time comes? Those are questions she needs to answer.
Like, no matter how tolerant of Wizards Wilhelmina is, she isn't one herself. It's not like Anton who had family with the curse/gift and had to face that already. Wilhelmina is going to be facing some inner turmoil over the matter. Saying :"Well surely she'll be reasonable and accommodating in this matter" isn't a done deal. It's likely, from what we know of her character, but not an assumed fact, like some here seem to suggest.
Magic is scary for the un-initiated, even when they are friends and understanding about it.
Like, think of the reputation hit, for her personally. If it gets out that Eike has magic, the regular, peasant Stirlander will start thinking that her line is tainted with magic, and some nobles will play up that angle as well. Especially if she keeps Eike as heir, instead of doing the culturally acceptable thing, and keeping distance, if not outright disinheriting her. This is Stirland remember. Mat might have moved the needle a touch on wizards, but they are still in general frowned upon.
Grey Magisters typically recruit people without many entanglements so that they avoid divided loyalties outside the Order. There's not going to be any framework of avoiding preferential treatment inside an organisation based on apprenticeships - any apprentice Mathilde picks will automatically have a massive head start because she's got twice the Magic score of the average Magister and probably about two hundred times the political pull.
Taking over the EIC is entirely untroubling compared to Mathilde's state of 'one good duel from becoming head of the Colleges' or 'one message and then having an army of very unamused Dawi'.
It's only not causing trouble if what follows is a definitive change in how the EIC is run, and what it's goals are.
If mostly owned and run by Grey Wizards, they
cannot, cannot, have the profit motive be their primary drive. Right now, with Wilhelmina in charge, it is. If profit is not the driving force of the organization anymore, then are they really primarily a merchant concern still, or is that a side business? It can be done, but if you want to do it without impacting the very trust that allows for it to happen, significant changes to the EIC have to be made. Changes which aren't going to be easy, or necessarily successful.
