Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
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Burned_Cookie
Very tired girl.
- Location
- Plato´s cave.
- Pronouns
- She/Her/It/Its
[Citation Needed]
as she and the Grey Order understand and interpret it. A lot of people wouldn't agree, which is why it's important not to draw attention to the question, because whether the Grey Order wins that fight, it will be a PR loss, and the Vow is 50% PR.
- Location
- Greece
She really is not. She is strong, yes. She also has powerful friends, again yes. But we certainly are not beyond reproach. Even our dwarf rep might not be enough to get us that, since dwarves have opinions on violating oaths of loyalty like for example Mathilde's oath to her college.
In case of a major falling out with our college, we might just get offered orange hair dye from a dwarf
- Location
- Greece
Being beyond reproach =/= being powerful enough to make others reluctant to go against you as long as the violations are not too blatant. Many, many of the powerful skate by on the second, and people often claim that they are too powerful to punish for that reason.
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- Location
- Finland
Agreed.
But she is not breaking the vow, because the vow is carefully designed to allow for things lot of people might not expect.
The point is that Mathilde gets away with what she does, because she is not breaking the vow, not because she is too powerfult to take down.
I feel like it is still important to establish that 'too powerful to punish' is an exaggeration at best.
And honestly, to me it seems that trust and a record of getting good results are more important factors for Grey College tolerance than power.
Yeah, she's keeping in the limits of the Vow as interpreted by the imperial factions in the know (however grudingly on part of some Templars), and she's keeping it discreet enough that the people who aren't in the know don't notice.
What storryeater said. We're not invulnerable, but we're at a point of 'they could take us down if we started doing necromancy', not 'they're willing to go to war over Too Many Towers.'
We are violating the Vow of Poverty by repeatedly acting in the cause of self-enrichment, to a fantastical degree, and often not doing anything particularly useful with the results of that enrichment. Oftentimes this overlaps with doing something beneficial to the Empire, which is the standard excuse. Usually this benefits us, personally, and from a certain perspective 'increasing personal power is beneficial to the Empire' is a good excuse. Sometimes it doesn't have any benefit at all. Quite often we seek resources in the hope that we will put them to use, and don't. Likewise we hoard our 'accidental' gains in the hope we will put them to use, and don't. We benefit ourselves over and to the detriment of other Imperial institutions and/or individuals, and work to increase that advantage.
(That's not to mention that we'd chose K8P over the Empire rather quickly, and possibly our friends over the Empire, so 'what benefits us benefits the Empire' is... dubious)
Also looking at the talk of Eike's inheritance and whatnot... rather presumptious, not to mention wonderfully convenient, that our... friend? gets that benefit, isn't it?
If we're in line with the vow of poverty, it means nothing at all. It's just a convenient way of punishing people you don't like, and no restriction to those you do. (If we're skirting it (with occasional outright violation tpo minor to care), which is closer to what I believe accurate, then well, it still doesn't mean what it says it means, but it's at least something, even if it's mostly 'a convenient way of cloaking arbitrary power'.
What, exactly, in this model, would violate the Vow of Poverty? Literally just magically mugging people? That's... well, I suppose that's an option, but in that case it seems a PR problem that could have been avoided by just saying that.
... though I suppose the Empire executes people for petty theft, so 'theft/fraud/etc via magic is extra punished' doesn't work so well.
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Burned_Cookie
Very tired girl.
- Location
- Plato´s cave.
- Pronouns
- She/Her/It/Its
[Citation Needed]
Please provide some kind of evidence for your claims.
Pretty much, yes. Or magically defrauding them. No wind comes anywhere close to Ulgu's ability to gain tremendous wealth at the cost of other people. Mindhole and Eye of the Beholder are a conmans wet dream.
So half the purpose of the vow is making sure Greys don't do that. And you can't just forbid a few spells, because people can invent new ones, and it's easy to obfuscate the source anyway. Thus the vow, which means the burden of proof isn't on the college to show fault, it's on the wizard to show a lack.
The other half of the vow is that others know what Ulgu can do, and are understandably concerned. The vow is meant to reassure them
(It also means people don't try to bribe your secret police with money, which is the least interesting and useful thing to be bribed with.)
- Location
- Finland
Being too stupid to be able to explain how the mountain of gold you are sitting on is of direct and practical (or was it immediate?) use in serving the empire.
- Location
- US
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I think your overcomplicating it a lot. Law in a feudal society isn't as hard-coded as modern law, and WHF is hardly a typical fuedal state.
The Vow of Poverty is meant to curb possible abuses, and demonstrate the commitment of the Grey Order to principles above self-interest or profit. The Grey Order weighs the actions of its members, their history, contributions, and violation to determine how strict a line to take with any given member. Mathilde gets a lot of leeway, that's true, and she's far from perfect (as if any human could completely discard self-interest), but she's got a long history of going above and beyond, and benefiting the Empire, or the Empire's allies (Dwarfs). That's it.
Even then if we step too out of line, they will still censure us, depending on the severity of the offense. We are not above censure, nor are we impossible to assassinate if worst comes to worst. They are quite good at this whole 'toe the line so the Templars don't try to purge us again while still leaving enough room to our agents to be effective (and coincidently enough rope to hang themselves if they are so inclined.).'
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There would not be a war, if the college actually decided that we are pushing the Vow too much. We are very useful to the college, so there might be some room for negotiations, but if the order decided that we are hoarding too much, then we pretty much would have to give in.
Like, i have seen it before that we might choose K8P over the Empire and the College, but the dwarves would have major issues with us if Mathilde actually did that. Afterall, by dwarven standards, Mathilde would be in the wrong in that scenario. So breaking her oath to the college seems unlikely to earn her much sympathy there
The vow of poverty is about greed and exploitation. We are not allowed to exploit people for wealth; whether that's using our power to directly take, or our reputation to solicit bribes, or our skills to sabotage our economic rivals, or some other method of enriching ourselves at another's expense.
We are allowed to engage in fair trade. We are allowed to draw an income from our employers. We are allowed to invest in businesses. We are allowed to spend that money however we want, so long as it doesn't affect our capacity to serve the Empire. Buying towers makes us a better wizard. Owning inns and taverns extends the reach of Regimand's information network. Eike's inheritance allows her to shape the EIC into a tool for economic prosperity, as opposed to the Stirlandian League, which exploited and damaged the economy of the province for the benefit of a small group of selfish oligarchs.
The vow of poverty ask's two questions: "Are we exploiting people", and "Are we misusing that money for personal gain", and as long as the answer to both is "no", we're good.
But most importantly, it's a reputation thing. People know that we can be trusted because we put the Empire first. They know we are not working for a rival of theirs. They know we're not going to steal from them. They know there is a system of accountability. They know that despite the fact that we can fade into shadow, erase memories and kill without a word that we are not going to turn on them unless they break the laws of the Empire first.
Who watches the watchers? The Greys do, because they took a vow of incorruptibility. They are a trusted, resonable and reliable group in a system full of unenlightened self-interest.
As has been explained to us before, the gray order does not care about the spirit of the law, they are entirely about the letter of the law. Everyone bringing up how it is important to keep with the spirit over the letter because we're not in a legalistic environment is completely mishandling the vow. It's almost like some people don't remember the huge conversations we had to have about how to use our money in line with the vow.
And people forget how we had to launder our money to be able to spend it all on books. Remember that crit with the Barak Varr booksellers?
Our Master keeps an entire chain of inns across the country because he's using them for information gathering and this is of use, so he gets no trouble.
Eike will inherit the EIC and will use this for information gathering and this is of use, so she will get no trouble.
And there aren't going to be any problems or misunderstandings with this because everyone under the sun is going to know that an EIC with majority-Grey Wizard ownership is really an intelligence apparatus of the Grey College, as BoneyM said. Of course, a lot of merchants aren't going to want to do business with the spy arm of the colleges so the EIC will become a shadow of its former self.
And people forget how we had to launder our money to be able to spend it all on books. Remember that crit with the Barak Varr booksellers?
Our Master keeps an entire chain of inns across the country because he's using them for information gathering and this is of use, so he gets no trouble.
Eike will inherit the EIC and will use this for information gathering and this is of use, so she will get no trouble.
And there aren't going to be any problems or misunderstandings with this because everyone under the sun is going to know that an EIC with majority-Grey Wizard ownership is really an intelligence apparatus of the Grey College, as BoneyM said. Of course, a lot of merchants aren't going to want to do business with the spy arm of the colleges so the EIC will become a shadow of its former self.
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- Location
- Somewhere on Earth
If they want to guzzle an entire football stadium's worth of ass they could refuse to do business with a corporation with a near-monopoly in several incredibly rich areas of the old world, sure. In the meantime I'm pretty sure the EIC will stay strong as long as it doesn't start actively worshipping chaos, since the fact that 33% of the corporation is already owned by a frankly infamous lady magister of the Grey Order hasn't stopped anybody.
Tasoli
Life is for Living
- Location
- Behind the Keyboard.
Eike doesn't even have to use it for information gathering. As far as Grey Collage is concerned EIC is meant to prop up Stirland (and Van Halls) against Sylvania and it is enough by itself to justify its existance. And considering the long term contracts EIC has with Stirland army for supplies this will be the case for a long time.
- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
This is not quite what BoneyM said.
This discussion was in the context of the thread panicking about Wilhelmina's ambitions and not feeling qualified to judge whether the EIC was dangerous and asking Boney about ways in which we could pass the buck to other Greys. Notably, Mathilde as major shareholder, despite being a Grey, does not freak out other merchants because she has a lot of good reason about why she's owning it and doing things with it. It is my belief that Eike would benefit from the same sort of plausible deniability because she is Wilhelmina's granddaughter, and what could be more natural than inheritance. Will it raise some eyebrows? Almost certainly. But I seriously question the take that the EIC will necessarily dwindle to a shadow of its former self; I think that is reading more into Boney's old statements than justified.
I really don't think so. The Grey Order cares a lot about the spirit of the Vow. Violating the spirit will get you killed, no warning. The key thing though, is that the spirit isn't "Be poor". It's "Don't become rich by damaging the empire and exploting its people, and especially not by using Ulgu to do so".
Codex
Fantasy Addict
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Regardless of what independent businesses and traders take issue with, the EIC has secured near total dominance of trade with Stirland's Army and has strong Dwarf trade connections that are not likely to be affected by Grey ownership of the EIC. This includes trade with Zhufbar, Barak Varr and the wider/greater trade from Estalia, Tilea and Brettonia that will arrive through Barak Varr once the Canal is complete. Foreign traders have much less to be worried about than Imperial ones, and the EIC has control over the River Aver, which is the connecting point between Black Water and the Empire proper once the canal is constructed.
Gestures broadly at the EIC.
Particularly the canal.
The entire Skaven Loot Debacle.
I'm not gonna go through the entire quest, but... there's quite a few instances of 'yes, this benefits the Empire... but we're gonna make damn sure it benefits us most.'
Being too stupid to be able to explain how the mountain of gold you are sitting on is of direct and practical (or was it immediate?) use in serving the empire.
So, arbitrary power, then. You're... just describing arbitrary power.
I mean, I still feel that this could be solved by a 'Don't Use Magic to defraud or steal from people.* If you do, we'll have to Come Over There.' rule. This would amount to the same decision and would not suffer the problem of being textually violated on the regular, which tends to lead to people thinking you don't enforce your rules.
Like, 'Just don't use your magic to rob people, seriously', is a perfectly reasonable restriction, but calling it a Vow of Poverty when it isn't is just asking for trouble.
*Except enemies of the Empire, of course. That's totally okay**.
** We define who enemies of the Empire are. We're still feudal bastards, after all.
I mean, it clearly doesn't work. People tried that. We killed them and took their money.
That's generally a problem with secret police. You can bribe them... but they could just kill you and take it anyways.
If that's the spirit of the Vow of Poverty, suggest we've come pretty close, but probably not violated it.
On the other hand, that's again a Vow of not using your magic to exploit people.
Someone else said something along these lines, and I can't find it, but...
Grey wizards aren't trusted. They're possibly the most feared and hated of the wizards, a group that is generally feared and hated. People don't openly despise them only because if they did, they might end up disappeared.
One of the reasons they're not trusted is a perceived tendency towards shiftiness and fraud.
Gee, sure is a shame that a couple of Grey Wizards (well, okay, one, and another being used as a pawn), ended up turning a giant trade company into a shadow of its former self... by using it to enrich themselves/their order. Weren't they supposed to not be doing this? Guess they just can't help themselves.
Alternatively, sure is a shame that a couple of Grey Wizards have enriched themselves into a monopoly over the most profitable part of the empire. Good for them, the crafty old bastards, but how can you think we can trust them? Shows how much vows matter to these swindlers.
I think that this is just part of the thread becoming more moral in its choices as the story went on.
Striland mathy didn't give a shit about the spirit of the law.
Thunderdome mathy was still happy to twist things when needed.
It's Loremaster Mathy that started being a straightshotter.
I'm just not sure ifs it's because we have generally rewarded for honesty and it's pavalen.
it's a change in the thread regarders, promoting a different voting culture from 'good meaning, but kind of corrupt and willing to do things like torture' striland mathy. To well, worrying about the letter of the law that we already know is bent into a cycle mathy.
or if it has to do with the amount of voters, and moral options are more likely to win consensus. (Take that Hobbs!) and that consensus leads to a change in thread culture, which leads to moral stances having the high ground and that leads to moral choices getting more wins etc etc.
- Location
- Greece
There is also the strong possibility that the oath is also a useful tool to convincingly fake deaths with none the wiser. And for an order of spies, a tool for easily faking death is very useful. Could even be the actual explanation for why executions are so high while the oaths have this caliber of lophole.