Don't be surprised if sparing Rikard will backfire and Markus pays the price for it. Is that why you are telling me to change my vote for this reason?
The Enemy Within (WHF Witch Hunter Quest)
- Thread starter Maugan Ra
- Start date
- Fantasy
- Location
- Australia
I've looked back at my posts and I haven't told you to change your vote. I've told you to stop making shit arguments and to stop thinking that violence or execution are valid responses to yelling at law enforcement.
Fine, you're right but I won't change my vote and still think Rikard should have kept his mouth shut than open them and act surprised when it bites him.
Wade Garrett
Just trying to do the right thing
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
Walking in and immediately throwing a punch at the person responsible for your dad being burned at stake was...honestly a pretty baseline sympathetic and relatable thing for Rikard to do.
His follow up act; "As a high income individual I would GLADLY die before following the same rules as low income SCUM", however...
[X] Kill your Brother
[X] Kill Your Brother ('s Delusions)
[X] Kill Your Brother ('s Delusions)
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My main argument is that he's a witch and by the laws of the Empire that Marcus is sworn to uphold it's either Colleges or death. We've already sent one person there, why hesitate now?
Either Marcus becomes a dirty
One person already died a torturous death because of law breaking and Marcus just had to exorcise his ghost. Who will burn next? Maria? Marcus? The rest of the household?
If Rikard had any integrity in him he would have confessed before his father burned. He wouldn't be here, putting his brother in the position of either joining his father on the pyre or having to kill his brother.
Is this guy worth it?
Plus, reminder that he's an imperial noble. Killing him would make the world a better place. Ask any peasant.
[X] Kill your Brother
- Location
- Australia
He was a child then. Even though he's a noble, the mistakes he made at that young age ought to be excused.
What wast that quote from Game of Thrones? "Love is the death of duty"
For me the biggest strike against Rickard didn't call on anybody once the haunting started.
For me the biggest strike against Rickard didn't call on anybody once the haunting started.
He's not a kid now.
We've seen how half a day's worth of prayer, by I think a person sanctioned by the church, can apparently produce a holy bullet, so this makes me wonder, why aren't there more holy bullets used by non-holy peoples? I don't expect the local militia to have a stock of magic bullets, let alone guns. Still, if all you need is some priest to pray half a day near a bullet just to make it effective against ghosts when he's already praying as his full-time occupation then I'd at least expect the city guard or state troops to have a good stockpile of these things by now for a rainy day. Unless of course, I'm obviously missing something, then please let me know, because the logistics of this just don't make any other sense with the current understanding I have right now.
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That's Bretonnia where peasants were treated by so-called chivalric nobles badly in a Monty Python manner.
- Location
- Australia
The holy bullet Markus made is only worthwhile specifically against ghosts, which are a pretty rare sort of foe for anyone to come across. The best way to deal with them is to call in a specialist, like a priest or templar. Blessings like the one Markus made are temporary are not worth the effort of regularly making them.
Peasants are routinely and universally oppressed in the Empire too.
Bretonnia nobles actually do stuff. Imperial nobles are just parasites that occasionally do heresy, rebellion, or heresy and rebellion at the same time.
Dutch
Bored Spearman of the Wind
- Location
- CET
I could go on about a bunch of stuff others have already mentioned. I could say something about how Marcus' entire thing as a character was that he was unlike your typical witch hunter, he would look for evidence first before rendering judgement and give everyone a fair chance. Well. The evidence is here now, and by both the laws of man and gods Rickard is guilty.
Or I could say that we spent the entire last arc undermining Marcus' faith in himself and his own judgement. Going against both his belief in justice and his religion here surely won't have any drawbacks beyond having to cover up this whole thing.
If this had been any other noble the choice would have been clear from the start. If it had been the guard captain or one of the merchants at Bogenhafen that pulled this shit we wouldn't have thought about it twice.
Or I could say that we spent the entire last arc undermining Marcus' faith in himself and his own judgement. Going against both his belief in justice and his religion here surely won't have any drawbacks beyond having to cover up this whole thing.
If this had been any other noble the choice would have been clear from the start. If it had been the guard captain or one of the merchants at Bogenhafen that pulled this shit we wouldn't have thought about it twice.
- Location
- Australia
Guilty of seeing colours.
Going against his belief in law; in service of his belief in justice, and earning a measure of the redemption from his father he's been seeking.
No argument against your last point. Rikard's nobility is a black mark against him, and a valid reason for his execution. I just don't think it's enough in this case when weighed against the other things.
LucidProp
Pocky Eating MafiaDoka
And my argument is that Colleges or Death isn't a choice that has to be made immediately. Walder likes Markus because he's a man who doesn't go and act on his most direct impulse at the first sign of trouble when there are alternatives available. You might say walking away is dereliction of his duty, but I see it as the first step to actually changing Rikard's mind by showing him trust that his mere existence isn't a crime.
Rikard was a child when his father burned, why would he give himself up to his father's murderers when his only crime is being born wrong and he hasn't actually done anything worthy of being treated like a cultist who wants to summon daemons that eat people? He has no motive to do so, we've seen it in his actions and his words, and the Mutant Edict establishes precedence in the law that no, people born different through no fault of their own aren't automatically damned and corrupt.
You're saying that Markus sparing a man who hasn't harmed anyone nor plans to harm anyone makes him corrupt and a hypocrite. I say him doing so shows that he's capable of nuance instead of being a unfeeling enforcer of unjust laws.
Where exactly do you think the State Troops get their equiment and training from? Who makes up the Knightly Orders that serve as an integral part of the Empire's military? Who funds public infrastructure in the Empire? Like it or not, Imperial Nobles have a role to play in the Empire.
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It's not his existence that's the crime. But his dereliction of duty, both religious and social. All imperials showing sign of having magic go to the Colleges. This is black and white. Conscription sucks, but you either obey or you get shot. That's how Imperial society works, why should it be different for Rikard? Because he's a noble? Because he's scared of not making it?
If he didn't want it, he could have left the Empire long ago. But apparently he decided that risking his entire family is worth it if he keeps his manor and his monies. Because that's what he's done. He knew that people get burned for this shit.
bookwyrm
Doom of Public Libraries
- Location
- Wichita, Kansas
The Empire is a steampunk pastiche of the meme Renaissance and the baroque absolutism and Wars of Religion further into the Early Modern era- Imperial nobles largely have nothing to do with such rustic manual labor as personally whipping serfs, that's for the vulgar country bumpkins of the knightly gentry or the disgusting new money strivers of the hired out estate managers and farm bosses of the mercantile-professional classes. No the chief object of a Rieklander noble house of good repute is of course taking food out of the mouths of Altdorf with vexatious turnpike tolls and carriage taxes on the grain they need to import, and wielding grossly unequal and limited franchise in the Riekland Diet to vote down the new canal expansion that the city masses desperately need while affirming Karl-Franz's jolly good idea of a Window Tax.
LucidProp
Pocky Eating MafiaDoka
If your options are "Die or be Conscripted", that isn't a choice, that's an ultimatum. Otherwise, we should have killed Spatin the moment we learned she was a witch who deliberately avoided surrending herself to the Colleges, and if we had failed to convince her, I would have voted to let her go or at least hoped that we roll poorly enough that we didn't catch her.
Imperial society sucks, and when presented the opportunity to change it for the better, I want to take it. Showing Rikard that he has a choice in the matter that isn't "Die or be conscripted" is part of that, and like I said, also the first step to convincing him that maybe the Colleges isn't what he thought it was.
Killing him now reaffirms that Imperial Society's unjust treatment of people born differently is right and correct.
You characterize Rikard as a greedy man who wants to keep his money, but if he was one, he could just have ran away with the family fortune to some other country and enjoy his wealth there. Instead, he stayed right where he is with the family's fortune on the downturn. I'm not saying he's a perfect man, but that his motivations don't stem from greed. Rather, it's out of guilt for his father's fate.
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