plans

Back to the same point (again)- unless some high mucky muck priest comes up and blows it away....and don't tell me were on good terms with the church and they don't consider us heathen....remember the 25ish knights and the acompaning rabble that came to the door?..They were looking to "burn a few heathens", or barring that, to have a good fight.
...and Back to another point...were are a threat to them as a power base (see the explaination I gave before...I'll wait )

:roll:
Okay, here's my take on it...

Francois- :idea:
You guys can do what you wish. If you want to kill a bunch of knights and such...have at it. If you want to kill a lot of knights, have fun. When the Church fella's show up, don't expect me to NOT say I told you so. Just give me warning that they are coming so I can hide our library. Speaking of which....if you need me for SOMETHING ELSE, just knock. I will be in my library.

Phillipus- Bring 'em on. Master, who did you want me to kill first? Do you want them to die slow? :twisted: do you want ANY to survive?

On Murphs character- Of course. They want someone beholden to them keeping an eye on us....just like the Baron's Toad we're talking about. 8O

Dang up? YOU wanted to start a fight with some knights when they had 10,000 bored brethern, and church envoys a couple of miles away. DOH! Why don't you just put your head in here...no, pay no attention to the large sharp blade up there....

Please remember (yes, I know it sometimes is unavoidable), this IS CHM's game....if you fight, there are usually more problems from that, than other options ie Don't fight if don't have to..

But as I said, its up to you guys.... (sorry-in character )

we don't realy have much to worry about from knights coming to kill us. They'll never make it thru the mist. We would be able to kill a couple, retreat and come back to kill more. Our only real wory is seige, and we can break any seige they throw against us easily enough to go get more supplies

The church hasn't condemed us. They don't consider us heathen. Alot of mages are actualy christian. Now, we're not best buddies, but they don't want to come burn us down. The local church is even willing to make murphs character a priest. At no point have we had any conflict with the church. We've actualy donated to the local monks. I don't think we have to worry about the church comeing and getting involved.

I'm not opposed to giving him something if he behaves. What i am opposed to doing is giving him something before he proves he can behave. I think we need to tell him to leave, let him know what will happen if he doesn't, take the Mist-Wand from him and throw him out on his ass. We asked him to leave before, told him to behave and all it got us was a hall full of men at arms. We need to stick to our guns this time and not fuck up like last time.

Nate:

Church-The fact that we are here, justifies the church actions against us. Th echurch wants to control everything...including the kings. Look at history...the church of England started because they wouldn't follow Rome. England was an exception though, because of its size and power. Look at what happened to the "Heretics" in France...They killed them. Look at what happened in Spain....The word "Inquisition" comes to mind... Consider the Wicken, the Druids, etc. We just represent one more obstacle to Church supremecy.

Carrot and the Stick-

Dave was saying we could ask him to leave, promising him a beaming report to the Count upon his return. I suggested we throw in something tangable....A longevity potion, an item that will allow him out of a few scrapes...etc Give him something to walk away with other than threats and promises...After all, if he does a good job anway, he comes away clean. After considering this, why should he leave...threats? He'll go get some knights, we smash'em, more come, we smash 'em, more knights come, but with church help, to deal with the heathen presence on the hill...
End results... a lot of people die, including us.

Well we have a week to figure something out.

PLease explain further what you mean by carrot and stick and facts of life. I understand what the metaphors mean, just not how you're useing them.

And why are we worried about the church becoming involved. We're not doing anything to them.

I agree 100%

We discussed this tonight....

One problem with forcing the issue:

If you push (too) much, the Church becomes involved. At that point we can kiss our backsides goodbye.

We also thought maybe the "Carrot and the Stick" might work in conjunction with the "facts of life".

Concerning the Counts brother...We should start tilling the soil of this garden, post haste.

The problem is people don't just get made into nobles. CAN they make someone a noble, yes. WILL they make someone a noble, probly not. we're mere peasants and have done nothing that deserves being knighted (which would be as high anoble title we would be granted).

Dave brought up a good idea over the phone about blackmailing sir Eduard. We sit him down and tell him to go home, leave the wand for the mist and don't cause trouble. We tell him that if he comes back with armed men everyone dies, if he stirs up trouble bad things start happening to his house. if he cooperates we let him say he's running the covenant. He can keep the stipend the count is giving him, we won't go after him if he's already managed to weasel some money out of us. But this time we have to stick to our guns. If he complains to the countess, we mess up his crops, or animals. If he shows back up on our doorstep with armed troops, they get killed. If he doesn't want to go, we MAKE him go.

The count has a younger brother, who is next in line. He is an Heir to the throne, but not the counts heir. A matter of symantics. The problem is he's young, likre barely into his teens. So i think we needto curry favor with the countess. She already understands that we are powerfull allies. From the way she admited us an audience so quickly, and treats us with respect when she speaks to us i think we can develop this into more if she comes to power.

An heir could just mean his mother, or brother. Having an heir just means whos next....

Nate: Re-read: My point was that we don't have a noble running the house....I know that. What I stated was we need to get one of us appointed.....meaning MADE A NOBLE. That solves all the problems (I think). A mage in charge of the Cov, means a stable head of house for about 100 years, and no static from the BS nobles, and we can get away with quit a bit. Maybe if we work on it, we can convince them to raise all mages to nobility....

The count is 16..I think. We had this discussion when we were talking about his mother running stuff. I made the point that 14 year olds were legal adults, and CHM said something to the effect of "Nope". I am sure he is under 18, and pretty sure it was 16. In any case, I don't think we should bank on him coming back. Arrows fly, people die...

Keep in mind the Count is a young man, either in his teens or maybe early 20's. I do not remember hearing that he got married, let alone have any male children. I bet if he got married it would have been a big, public event.

I do not think he has any heirs, but we'd have to check with Charles to be sure.

-DC

We have no noble head of house, or even a merchant or promonent head of house. We're a bunch of peasant rable with armed men who need a head of the house. The fact that we have existed for a hundred years or so without one means nothing to them. Obviously you need to be a noble to rule a house. chuck atualy mentioned to me that he was appointed because we don't have anyone they think could run the house while the count was away.

Point missed:

The count stated that he was installing a noble to have someone "in the chain of command". He did not install someone because we were not able to run the place (obviously we were running it okay).

Nate: I wouldn't count on the Count coming back. He went off with Richard and (who's the King of France?). We know Richard had a difficult time returning (ala Robin Hood), so who's to say our Count will return? Like Jason said above, and I said before, I think we should curry favor with the Counts Heir. By getting in good with the heir, we stand a chance of changing the situation without conflict.

I think the best solution is to have a mage named as nobility, and installed. Having a stable head of household for a hundred years appeals to me. If we get a "mortal", we are going to have replacements about every ten to twenty years. That will be tedious. The only advantage to THAT, is the mortal will provide us with replacements WE could train.

Another solution is to have the Covenant given 'tax exempt status'...like the church. The problem with that is proving to the nobles that we are important enough to leave alone. We would then need to find a way of legalizing Hermetic Covenants as an institution separate from chivalric system. Very difficult. I suppose we could bring out the point that there are going to be mages, whether they are with us, or rogues, and that unless policed, a rogue could do great damage. In that light, we do the government a service already...hmmm.

I'm not to keen on killing him. There are plenty of ways to deal with him without killing him. I also think we should plan everything out fully before taking action. We need to put our plan of replacing him into action before we even do anything to him. If we're going to put one of our companions or grogs into a figurehead position we need to have him start dealing in the courts before we send Eduard away. Before we do anything to Eduards land or servants we need to go back and scout out the land. We deffinatly have to have a solid plan before we act, i think just going on instict got us in this position in the first place. I think there's three parts to this plan
A: Convincing the local nobles and the countess that we have a compitant person to 'rule' coraish
B: 'Dealing' with Eduard, whatever way we decide is best
and C: Installing this 'ruler' as a figurehead when Eduard is 'delt' with

we need to act fairly quickly with part A before continuing on with the other parts. Our figurehead should probly be in the courts for a year before dealing with Eduard so he gets a feel for the nobles and makes alliances and deals with them. We need a person who can and is willing to spend alot of time in the courts, maybe even bribing people with money and/or magical items such as potions or minor magical devices.

i feel that we need our guest to die without an heir. and we need to have someone in a proper place amoung the nobles in the counts court. this will require a new companion character or some considerable lying in the counts court.

the second optoin is to do nothing. wait until there is an heir and make the heir our friend. kill all coutiers that are against us. then we use our influence to determine our destiny.

i personally think it is crazy to kill or even harm this guy without determining when and how we will be able to replace him and with whom. i suggest we do this in an in game method. dose anyone have a character with law or knowledge of nobillity or government?

would anyone like to volunteer to be a court wizard? or some one that will stay in he counts court for a season a year?

the thing that no one understands is that this overseer is nobillity. he will not listen to us nor will he care for our opinions. he cannot be controled orforced to do anything. we are all peasants and beneath him. he will do what he wants to us and our land. he could send our grogs back to serfdom(if any are run aways).

he has done none of thoose things though. why is it bad that we are in this situation? things change, in the future all magi will have to accept the governments they are living under. we should use this as an opertunity to form a lasting bond to our count and country under our terms. we should be looking at getting involved in politics of the normals and magi alike. we need cooperation not resistance. it seems that everyone is more concerned with this minor noble then how to prevent such a problem from arrising again. i will not support any action until we have a plan to prevent such things from happening again.

i just spoke with chuck briefly about Sir Eduard and found out i was mistaken about WHY he was appointed to us. He was appointed to us because we have to head of the house. Since we have no Lord or Lady to run our lands and we're in a fiefdom the count appointed the noble to oversee us. This changes my opinion greatly since i think we can solve this. First off we need to get Sir Eduard out of our hair, then we need to prop someone up as a figurehead. Our Autocrat (whos name escapes me at the moment) might be a good choice, or probly even better is daves companion since he IS a local. If we can occupy Eduard and make the locals, and even the countess believe that we have a competent ruler we might be able to hold them off until the count gets back, or dies and a new count is appointed to ok our self-rule. I think our quick actions on the plague in town will help solidify our claim to self-rule if we act fairly quickly. Eduard is partialy motivated to not pillaging our coffers because he needs the land to be in proper shape when the count comes back to look good.

I'm all for the plan of drawing Eduard back home and either killing him or making sure he's perminantly occupied. Maybe we can cripple him, or make him so constantly fatigued he can't travell. I think we should keep him alive if we can arrange it.

But i have changed my mind since i know the situation better, we need to 'deal' with him somehow.

Nate, I second Mark's opinion.

If Sir Eduard wants to pillage our coffers and sheep, I think it's his "right" to do so.

I think he knows that if he does that, he'll bring our full wrath down up on himself, so he hasn't done it yet. But I think he has the "legal right" to if he wanted.

-DC

if I recall, there was an objection raised when he demanded to see our finances. He responded by asking if we were "revolting". (Well, we are revolting, but hey, we're mages)

Who protested? Why did he call for the guards? You have to think about whatswithin his 'right's' to do. It's his resposibility to look after the covenant so he has the 'right' to see what kind of money is being worked with. By protested do you mean tried to stop him physicaly?

Nate:

I'm sorry, but you are incorrect. The first thing he did when he moved in, was to inventory our money. Someone protested, and he almost called for the guards...

Anyone else like the idea of sending him to tend his father?

He is running our estate, it is not his. He's not interested in our money nor is he able to legaly take any of it to further his estate. I think you and mark have the wrong idea of what he's doing here. He's making sure we don't cause trouble and to make sure our house is run 'properly' not here to pilage our coffers. I personaly like the idea of making his father ill again and/ or making his servants rebellious. killing his cows or his crops will only get rid of him for a season or two anyways, it was just an example i was throwing out there.

the senior mages are unconcerned with him, and he hasn't done anything to harm the covenant yet and he's already been here what, two years already?

I don't think we should do anything to him while he's on our estate, it would be to easy to blame on use. if he falls ill while visiting his sickly father it could easily be blamed on a contagous disease. If his own servants murder him in his bed while he is visiting his father, or takes his own life out of greif, or his house burns down with him in it, anything besides something happening to him while he's surrounded by magi with earth shattering powers who have already proven they don't want him around.

very good point.

if you kill his cows on his own estate he might take some sheep form us to replace them. anything you do to him that costs him money will effect us. he controls are money.

OLD:

Dave,

I think we can sit down "here" and discuss it....

Jason: I think the Count is the young punk that just left. I am Waiting (please :roll: ) for someone to answer my last question: WHO, is his heir? I think we (strongly) should curry favor with THAT person. My belief is that the Baron has sailed away to never, never land (please wave ).

Nate: I tend to agree. Lets 'make' him go home and tend to his infirmed father.....we did save his life after all...(??)

Goal 1: get ride of the flee...
Goal 2: get some new grogs...
Goal 3: locate some new Vis sources
Goal 4: Get chummy with the nobles. Chummy refers to "on good terms", not Subservient.
Goal 5: Fill in our low art books with higher books.

These are, of course, my group goals, not personal.

I like Nate's thinking, even if it does come from a Fairy Woman.

We've been fumbling along for a while now. Let's sit down as a group and write down short, medium and long term goals. And let's make plans to achieve those goals.

-DC

I think we need to set up a clearly defined set of goals for the covenant, both short term and long term and discuss a way to reach those goals.
Our two long term goals so far seem to be 1:Improving the library and 2: stopping coraish from slipping into winter.

Now the library bit is coming along great. We have a schedule to use the monocle every season and we've come a long way with the addition of the new books and the knowledge of the spells.

keeping ourselfs an autum covenant is something entirely different. We realize that we need to better our standing with the local nobles and forge new alliances in the tribunal, but we're not doing much about it. Dave, being a gerbaltron, is the good choice for the locals. I'm willing to travel to Medwin's watch this coming spring and negotiate with them regarding our standing and hope to travell to Endymian Well (sp) in the next couple years to trade some spells, but atleast one other person should check out a couple other covenants. Obviously the upcoming grand tribunal would be a great place to sniff out possible allies.

For short term goals we seem to have a disagreement as to weither we NEED to deal with our 'appointed' noble or not. I think that if we do 'deal' with him we shouldn't kill him, we should arrange things so he needs to be at his own estate to care for his father, deal with unruly house servants, his crops fail, cows die, something that requires his attention and KEEPS him there. What kind of spells do we have at our disposal to arrange these things. I have no Herbam spells to destroy crops, but i could spont. a spell with a handfull of herbam vis.

I think we need to recruit some grogs. We are losing grogs due to age and don't seem to be gaining them as quick. We lost the psychotic girl because she went from -4 int (rainman level) to -5 int (drool-bib level). The kick ass archer is older then dirt and it's just a matter of time before we are burying his ass too.

whatcha guys think?

why kill the count his son will take over in a couple of years. the county will be run by the elder countess and our subverted friend will become a king. let us prepare by killing any val da rice agents at court.

Val de Rise is our enemy covenant. The one to the north of us that is made up entirely of trouble-making Tytalus.

Val who?

I'm pretty sure that Sir Eduard does have a family estate. Because of his loyalty, his holdings have been "extended" to include our covenant.

The problem is not Sir Eduard. It is the Count's distrust of us. He is known to be a devout Christian.

We need a new Count that is more open to our influence, and hasn't been biased by 10 years of Val de Rise's slander.

Dave,

Along the lines we were discussing before....

We want to get rid of Sir Eduard...

He is a knight...

He doesn't have a proper estate...

Lets get him what every good knight wants...an estate. Either we can knock off a knight, and have him installed, or we can find one thats open, and have him installed. Either way, we have kicked him upstairs, and we are rid of him. Doing it this way, will eliminate the need to remove him "the other way".

About the Count: He may die anyway. How long does this crusade last?

I was talking with Mark today. I had an idea.

We should send an agent to the Holy Land and make sure our teenage Count gets killed in the fighting.

We've done a terrible job in the past 20 years keeping on good terms with the local nobles. The damage is done. We need a new start. We need a new Count.

Let's get rid of this one and start rebuilding.

-DC

of course.

read write of 6 for my monk or is it 5? ill let you know when we gat together for the next game. i am probably going to need him to make copiues of a book on read write latin or a church knowledge book. he is writing.

I am still looking for that tutor. I need my assistant to be able to R/W Latin, at a reasonably high score.

anyone have any ideas?