Lord Whiran Fancypants? (Question about an uh-oh!)

[SirHelpsAlot?]

Sir Diealot wrote:

SirHelpsAlot? wrote:
blah blah etc.



And this guy called -me- an asshole.

I rest my case.
*reaches out, strips the word helper from beneath Sir Diealot's name and tosses it on the ground*

[Larrath]

Enough with the goddamned flaming.

[ale six]

Enough with the goddamned flaming.

Yeah. Seriously. The only thing worse than a flamer is someone who flames while hiding behind anon posts.

edited because I quoted the wrong post

[Aldiel]

One thing also to consider is that the talent can come into fruition at the onset of puberty or later.  With this said, it is quite possible for a noble to have magickal powers, but how that is handled, would be something you would have to find out IC, as Halaster stated above.

[Aldiel]

Who is this SirHelpsAlot?  Unmask yourself.  :x .  Please have more respect for the other players on Armageddon.  Whether you agree fully with another player's conduct or not, try to be respectful and patient with them.  Also, I hope this Sir Helps Alot and Sir Diealot are not one and the same as I am beginning to believe. *chuckle*

[Xygax]

They aren't one-in-the-same, and I know who SirHelpsAlot? is, and I'm not terribly impressed with the attitudes of either poster.  One aspect of adhering to the "no flaming" rule is not being drawn in by other people's flames.

This thread is close to being locked.

-- X

[jcarter]

Fads/style are fickle and really one of those things that can't be predicted. Let's pretend a noble with blue and red streaked hair is not killed by his noble house and grows up and parades around Allanak. It's a strange mutation. Now, what will happen?

On the one hand, it might be one of those exotic-yet-hot sort of things. If the noble plays their cards right, they might be able to get even more attention and be remembered better to the people and their superiors due to their distinct characteristic, as opposed to the round-chinned and brown-haired brother of theirs. They might even be able to make having streaked hair cool, because it's so exotic.

On the other hand, it might be shunned for being different for the reasons listed in this thread. Magicker-baby, whatever. Again, style and fads are very whimsical and there's no telling what could happen. It comes down to the attitude of the noble.

Let's go and say this noble is a magicker. Again, there are so many things that could happen it's just so fucking hard to predict. If they're good, they may be able to study and study and study and become the greatest elementalist ever or whatever, because of all their resources. Like the fashion thing, they may be able to spin it into a good thing. On the other hand, they might just be an embarassment to their family. It's really one of those things that's just up in the air and works on the cooperation of the clan imms and the players. I think labelling it one way or another though is too hard to do.

[BlackStabbath]

The idea of my post wasn't to look for a concrete answer in the idea, as I am sure that in a world so vastly influenced by the playerbase, there might not be a defnitive answer.

I would have posted in Ask the Staff if I wanted that.

You're certainly welcome to give your opinion on how you feel it might be seen by the family of said youngling, and I would be thankful because everything I get to read about it helps my understanding of the game world that much more.

I love looking at threads like these and all the player 'statements' about how things 'are' in the world, so definitive, so final... "This is the way the world is..." yadda yadda. Like the blind men who are feeling different parts of an elephant.. the one at the leg is saying 'it's a tree!' the one at the tail is saying 'it's a snake!' the one at the ear is saying 'it's a sailboat!' All of them are so sure..

More often than not these threads just ramble on with people arguing over subjects they truly have no grounded knowledge in.. It's like a battle of whose guess feels more accurate.

Someone actually claimed to be able to answer the questions but wouldn't because of their IC nature... I'd truly be surprised if they had the real answer.

Thankfully however, this thread has TWO staff responses that do a really good job of actually answering the question from an informed position without tossing out the old 'find out IC' line we've all grown to love so much.

So, wild speculations aside, the answer to the original question is clear: Unless you meet a Noble-Magicker, assume they simply do not exist.  The reasoning behind this can be anything your little commoner mind can come up with.

Next topic?

[spawnloser]

So, someone can't say that they're amused by speculation?  I'm amused by speculation.  On many topics, people's speculations and assumptions are often quite amusing.

[Sir Diealot]

Sir Diealot wrote:

SirHelpsAlot? wrote:
blah blah etc.



And this guy called -me- an asshole.

I rest my case.
*reaches out, strips the word helper from beneath Sir Diealot's name and tosses it on the ground*

*checks Helper label* Looks like its still there, kid.  Keep trying!  Someday you'll realise that, while you hate me, I could care less.

I enjoy the speculation brought up by OP's post.  I also like to see player input, coupled with staff input as the game would be nothing without the interplay between the two groups.  The idea of a magicker noble is a curiosity to me, and something I'd considered, and thought long and hard about.  Not to play, simply because I'm curious as heck about that sort of thing.

Does Bosrail secretly keep an Aunt who's a magicker, to help with the Muls.. and slave training?  Does Oash's tendancy to hire magickers mean they harbor secret magickers in their family, and so view them with less of a stigma?  Are Templars really just magicker Nobles who are impressed into the Sorc. King's service?

All in all, its a fun topic to discuss, and I really enjoy all the various ideas.  I figure it'll never happen because of the spam-casting-in-your-room syndrome, but that doesn't mean NPCs won't be.  

So, my point of view is that its up to your commoner's speculation, really.  At least, in 'nak.  In Tuluk, the Party Line says that all good citizens of Tuluk are non-magickers.  And, since the Nobles are Muk's Chosen..  Well, it'd be unlikely that magickers survived there.  Its interesting, and I may even create a magicker character who has an unnatural curiosity about such things for some reason.

[Angela Christine]

Make 'em templars, that's what I'd do.  Character classes don't actually exist in the world, so there is nothing to say that you can't be a Krathi and a Templar (or a Whiran and a Burglar, a Vivaduan and a Warrior, etc.)  He can suck power for some effects from an elemental plane rather than leeching off the God-King all the time?  Fantastic!  Once said King is hooked into the Templar, suppressing the tell-tale elemental effects should be a trivial bit of magick, and teaching the elemental-Templar that she has to pray before casting a spell wouldn't be hard at all.  

The Kings are powerful, they might even be able to siphon off ALL of the elemental energy and re-direct it for their own personal use.  Devoid of any elemental energy to draw on, they effectively are not elementalists any more.  Problem solved.  Those metal rings that each and every noble owns might actually be devices designed to drain off magickal energies and direct them to the metal-clad tower (the highest building in the city, and one that bares some resemblance to a lightning rod despite the lack of lightning in the area).  With every noble proudly wearing their house ring, it wouldn't matter what age their powers would have manifested at, because they will never manifest at all.

There could even be a test that would detect unmanifested elemental affinity in children.  Presumably the link is there from birth (or before), it isn't something that you can DO to an adult to force the link.  It would be a tricky bit of magick, not something every blue robe in the street could do, and so not something that would be remotely practical to try on every child in the city.  But there are only a few hundred nobles alive at one time, a single Templar could easily manage to find time to test every single one.  Perhaps even do it secretly, remotely or as part of some ceremony like a baptism or coming of age ceremony.


There are a lot of possibilities.  Find out IC probably isn't going to help in this case, so I guess it stays a mystery.


Angela Christine

[SpyGuy]

I think AC hit the nail on the head, if IMMs even know an answer.

If a House, and I mean any House, found out a child was a magicker they'd probably just hand them over to the templarate.  Only Oash accepts magickers in the least, and ungemmed magickers are dangerous to everyone.  And a gemmed noble would be a horrible embarrassment.

Best that they at the very least just up as an esteemed templarate magicker not knowing their real heritage.

[Dalmeth]

Actually, I can find it quite believable if the king executed any templar found to exhibit magickal ability.  If Tektolnes wanted them, he'd get them, and as a general rule of thumb in ruling empires, you want all the power of your subjects to come from you, so that they are totally dependent on you.

Think about a templar with magickal ability.  He can practice all he wants and probably has a greater access to knowledge on the subject.  He can probably send people to get whatever supplies he needs as well.  Lastly, a templar commands people, builds loyalty.  With all these factors, a templar with magickal ability can become a threat to the stability of the city, and we know what happens to threats to the city.

[mansa]

I thought they changed and introduced a 'NOBLE' guild?

[Sir Diealot]

There is no 'noble' guild.  At least not that I was allowed to choose back when I played one.  It'd be great if there had been.  I had to choose a guild that didn't fit at all, just to choose a guild and continue with cgen.

[spawnloser]

Yeah, I remember the 'noble' guild.  Don't know what happened to it, though.

[Angela Christine]

Actually, I can find it quite believable if the king executed any templar found to exhibit magickal ability.  If Tektolnes wanted them, he'd get them, and as a general rule of thumb in ruling empires, you want all the power of your subjects to come from you, so that they are totally dependent on you.

Think about a Templar with magickal ability.  He can practice all he wants and probably has a greater access to knowledge on the subject.  He can probably send people to get whatever supplies he needs as well.  Lastly, a Templar commands people, builds loyalty.  With all these factors, a Templar with magickal ability can become a threat to the stability of the city, and we know what happens to threats to the city.

Meh.  Assuming that the Elememplar isn't an idiot, he won't be a credible threat.  

Sure, like any other elementalist he can develop significant magickal power that doesn't depend on the God/Sorcerer-King  (GSK).  Unlike most elementalists, but like other Templars, he will also have significant mundane power, in the form of a generous paycheck, the ability to gather bribes and fines from commoners, and the ability to command at least a few soldiers.

However, at least a few of his spells, likely a few of his favorite spells, WILL depend on the goodwill of the GSK through his Templar-link.  If your god given abilities grant you the ability to heal yourself or shoot fireballs out of your ass, you are going to be reluctant to give that up without a good reason.  I sure would.


Being a Templar is a pretty good gig.  I think most people would be reluctant to give up that "sure thing" to try going toe to toe with the mighty Black robes, and the slightly less mighty but still pretty damned impressive Red Robes, a whole bunch utility Blue Robes, a passel of tame gemmed elementalists, not to mention an entire mundane army in a bloody civil war.  Even if you get past all that, you still have the Highlord waiting in his tower, along with whatever surprises he keeps up there.

There are a couple scenarios where he might go for the gusto:

The Templamentalist becomes completely insane.  

The Elememplar's connection to his elemental plane is so strong and so complete that he becomes a not-entirely-human Avatar of that element.  He probably isn't entirely sane in the human sense at this point either.

Sure, those could theoretically happen.  Anybody can go nuts, but when a regular Templar goes nuts the GSK can quickly shut off the magickal tap and deprive the Templar of magickal abilities, allowing the matter to be handled by a couple Blue Robes and their HG attendants.  A Elememplar will still be able to fire off a few impressive spells even without the grace of the Highlord.  Sooo . . . it might take a couple Red Robes and a whole platoon of soldiers to take him down?  Maybe even a Black Robe and a militia Special Ops/SWAT unit.  Followed by a bit of spin doctoring to explain what "really" happened to the masses.  That would be inconvenient, sure.  You wouldn't want to let things get that far out of hand.

It wouldn't get that far out of hand with a little careful handling.  

1)  Carefully choose which Ministry the Elememplar is going to serve.  To the commoner on the street a Templar is a Templar, but things are more complicated than that.  Most Templars do not directly command many soldiers.  It appears that any Templar can command a small group of street soldiers in the short term, but he can't just take control of a large section of the army, and all of the soldiers he can command will abandon him if a recognised officer of the Ministry of War or a higher ranked Templar tells them to.  You put him someplace where he will be useful, but not necessarily in a position to make contact with dissidents or command a lot of mundane authority.

A Templar in, say, the Ministry of Mining isn't going to have the opportunity or authority to command large groups of soldiers.  At best he will be able to cultivate the personal loyalty of a handful of soldiers that he deals with on a regular basis.  

Assign that Vivaduan to the White Robes, working in some part of the water distribution network.  He may have some abilities useful for finding clogs, priming pumps, detecting sabotage or impurities, or just topping up the tanks.

I'm sure there are Templarate positions that rarely or never deal with the public.  Templars that never leave the Templar's quarter.  Templars that spend most of their time in the mines, out on the farms, in the Great Library, inside the bowels of the Arena, in the kank breeding facilities,  or in other isolated locations.  There are probably even Templars engaged in arcane activities that hardly ever deal with other Templars, much less the public at large.  Those aren't the kind of Templars played by PCs, because it would make for really dull game play, but that doesn't mean that they don't exist virtually.  In some of those positions elemental abilities could come in handy on a daily basis, in others the elemental potential might not be exercises at all, but simply kept in reserve in case it is ever needed in an emergency.



2)  Assign a more powerful Templar (Red Robe or Black Robe) to serve as his Mentor and/or watch dog.  A few hours a week should be all that is necessary to make sure that the Telemenalist is sticking to the party line, so this would be a very small part of her duties.



3)  Have a fail safe.  A good, paranoid GSK should have these on every Templar!  You've already got some kind of magickal/psionic hook into your Templars that allows you to funnel magickal ability to them, right?  Make that hook multi-purpose, and you are good to go.  Instead of just shutting it off when a Templar goes bad, you can shunt a power overload down the line and literally explode the Templar with magick.  Or reverse the polarity of the link and instead of feeding power you suck the Templar dry, leaving only an empty husk.  Or simply rig some sort of explosive, poison, magickal trap or other nastiness into those Templar rings, robes and  medallions so that you can efficiently kill or neutralize any wayward Templars -- and incidentally also take care of any imposter's that somehow acquire a Templar's gear.  (I know that -I- certainly wouldn't try on a dead Templar's gear, I

might try to sell it, but never try to wear it.)[/list]
If I were a God/Sorcerer-King I wouldn't tolerate other sorcerers, but I could certainly find use for elementalists and even a few psis.  Of course they would have to be carefully monitored and controlled, but Templars are closely monitored almost by definition.


I'm not saying that nobly born elementalists would automatically become Templars.  I'm not even sure if it is possible or if the elemental link would preclude the Templar link, mystical stuff can be funny that way.  But I wouldn't be sure that it is absolutely never done unless Tektolnes told me that Himself.  Hmm.  Actually, Tektolnes is a lying, patricidal bastard  so I probably wouldn't believe him.    Also, Tek is a fictional character from a game, so if he starts talking to me I should probably get my head examined.   Ok, I wouldn't believe it was impossible unless, say, Sanvean said it was impossible.  



Angela Christine

[Dalmeth]

Templars are knights.  Knights are essentially a trained warrior class.  The same goes for samurai.   Both knights and samurai were essentially disbanded in favor for mass-produced armies as the societies they served, and oftentimes disrupted, moved to more centralized forms of government than the feudal system.

Tektolnes's knights have a nifty addition : all their power comes from him!  There's no way they can maintain their authority and usefulness without him.  There's no chance of rebellion, and that's what the big deal is about.  That's how the sorceror kings manage to keep a centralized government.

If one of the templar rebelled, they could have a small army at their backs.  This army might not simply try to take over the city, but one or two of the farming villages.

History shows that people do try this.  It's inevitable.  While the idea that the templar might be put under close watch has a lot of finesse to it, finess doesn't win in the long run.  Brute force always bears out in the long run.

There may be some benefits to having a templementalist, but they can be covered by the normal elementalists and still have that social stigma that keeps the bastards dependent on the central government!  Fun, isn't it?

There's a thousand different ways someone can screw with stability of the city state.  Why make it a thouasnd and one?

[Anonymous]

History shows that people do try this.  It's inevitable.  While the idea that the templar might be put under close watch has a lot of finesse to it, finess doesn't win in the long run.  Brute force always bears out in the long run.

Our history may prove this to be true but our history doesn't have sorceror-kings, I think they change things quite a bit.

There's a thousand different ways someone can screw with stability of the city state.  Why make it a thouasnd and one?

One templar is going to have a hell of a time affecting the stability of the city state when we're talking about 500k people including magickers other templars and a pissed off tektolnes.

I have no clue if it's true but I'd believe that the Sandlord has a better army than any Templar could muster and he sure seems to know his place.

What's more while taking a village is all well and good and they could hole up in medieval times the logistics of surviving a siege against a very nearby and comparatively well-stocked army.  Just issues with water alone would make it a lost cause before it even started.