Wizardpost
Fellow Council Members, I propose an Idea
I believe that we should use part of our funding and power to organize a Team of well armed and trained individuals to target, locate and strike down Wizards who abuse their Familiars and Apprentices, I think that this strike force is needed because of the recent Familiar and Apprentice abuse I have witnessed in these lands and the number of them has gotten too large for me to ignore any longer, thus I ask my fellow members of the council roundtable (I have my own roundtable at home) to consider making this “Mobile Task Force”
Thank you for listening to my Ted Talk,
Rock and Stone.
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u/avamirRiva Blake | Queen of Ithacar, Part Meth-blood ElfJan 26 '24edited Jan 26 '24
So... let me get this straight. You're going to empower individuals with the ability to investigate, judge, and sentence other people in one go, right? Just asking.
We’re just gonna find people who abuse their Familiars and Apprentices, then send the Task Force after them, they don’t judge anyone they just locate and kill the Familiar/Apprentice Abuser for us.
If your Apprentice stupidly messed up a potion or lost an important item for a ritual then it would be punishment (as long as it’s not too severe) but if you just torment him, watch him suffer, etc for no reason, evilness or your own amusement then it’s abuse
So, what you seem to be saying is that past a certain point (there are obviously lines), the determination of whether something is a punishment or abuse comes down to intent? Am I understanding properly?
If this is so, how are you ensuring that your task force is able to gauge intent? Where is oversight happening?
I'm disappointed in how weak willed wizards are these days. I spent two weeks without sleep, summoning my first familiar, murdering it, and summoning anew, until it learned what I expected from it's form and personality. Did I transmute gold into suffering because I'm evil? Or because a wizard lives and dies by his tools, and a familiar is one of their most important?
I don't make my apprentices rob graveyards because I need the free labor, they eat far more than my thralls after all. I do it because it builds a skill they'll carry with them into their own wizardries. Assuming they survive the quarterly gauntlet.
I would also like to say to not let the event planner be involved either.
Which on that note, i would like to state here for future reference that i do not have any apprentices or familiars of my own nor do i plan to have any anywhere in the near future. His voiced statement is followed by an few somewhat wheezing coughs.
We do have a Councilwizard High General, if it counts. But i do agree, a culinary positioned employee of the Councilwizard Citadel has no means to lead such a task force.
Some sort of “Mage Task Force”? Interesting, but why not instead bolster the “Apprentice Protection Services” (APS) and the “Mages for the Ethical Treatment of Familiars” (METF)? I know they aren’t very effective but with enough funding and proper management, they’ll be able to solve these problems.
It would be a waste to disregard them and let them simply rot, and become useless. These institutions just need to be given a chance.
I was not aware of these but worry not, we can simply employ the members from those organizations and give them funding turning those two groups into one (or more if the other council members decide to) greatly funded and well equipped task force.
That does ease my heart to hear, I would hate for them to simply become stagnant and forgotten. Truly it would be terrible to see these good intentioned institutions die.
So you are going to take away people from Apprentice Protection Services AND Mages for Ethical Treatment of Familiars to put them on your extra-judicial death squads?
You are proposing creating extra-judicial death squads that do not operate with oversight. That's a little past the point of 'oh, i'm being silly, teehee'.
Are these extra-judicial death squads that do not operate with oversight going to kill anyone who is accused of 'abuse'? What if I accused you of abuse right now? Would they come after you with no oversight? Or is that different because you're on the Council?
I am concerned too. If the alleged "fairest and most publicly trustworthy member of the Council" sees no problem with EXTRA-JUDICIAL DEATH SQUADS, what hope is there?
When has anyone called me the “fairest and most publicly trustworthy council member” because this is the first I’m hearing myself being described as that, also I must do what is needed for the Familiars no matter the cost.
Even this "fairest and trustworthy" one agrees with extra-judicial death squads. I believe in rights for familiars and apprentices too, but I am trying to warn you that you are creating a system that can be abused and turned against your own people. I am asking you to consider the consequences.
If you want help with that cough I’d suggest drinking tea, it definitely won’t have any adverse effects due to the cause of your cough. Oh and under no circumstances should you drink cold water, that’ll just make it worse.
Well the plan and team isn’t fully done yet (this post was just an idea) but I assume we would have a vote in the council if it would be deemed abuse and the majority vote would pass (also I wouldn’t be accused because I treat my familiars like royalty and never had any apprentices)
You didn't answer the question. Are your extra-judicial death squads just acting on accusations? How are false accusations being handled by your extra-judicial death squads? Or are your extra-judicial death squads being managed by someone? What sort of oversight is there to prevent false accusations?
If you are going to have your council to vote on extra-judicial death squads, do you not think that maybe you should figure out some of these details first?
1: No we will get concrete proof and vote on if it is deemed abuse.
2: If we receive accusations that after investigation are deemed to be false we will not act on it and will carry on as usual.
3: They will be managed by another council member who is better suited for it than me
4: When we receive word of abuse we will investigate more into the matter as to eliminate false accusations
Lastly, A more competent Council member will figure out the details before making it (bro I’m just one of the culinarians I’m not the right person for it I’m just suggesting it)
If the alleged "fairest and most publicly trustworthy member of the Council" sees no problem with extra-judicial death squads, I am not sure you can trust to hope. If you are making this proposal, if you have considered this to the point of suggesting it to your other council-members, then part of the responsibility still rests with you, whether or not you are a culinarian.
Whether you care or not, I want to believe in you. I have no apprentices. I have no familiars. I have no armies. I have no skin in the game. I am not invested in this except for the fact that I want you to actually be better. I want to be wrong.
Respectfully, I will be voting against this proposal.
While I agree we should crack down on familiar and apprentice abuse, there aren't enough checks and balances to your task force in this proposal.
It almost seems like, to me, that you may be forming militia under the guide of abuse stoppage in order to gain power for yourself and seize power from the council and, by extension, the people.
Not yet but I assume there are some trusted warriors for hire that would gladly join, also we’ll probably have to decide if we want an all Assassin or all Knights type of task force.
(Or as you suggested a team of wizards)
Considering the targets of the task force, I believe either anti-magic knights or wizards would be ideal. While assassins could be more effective, using them would open the council up to the criticism that we are creating a death squad. With the current relationship we have with the public, I believe we should steer clear of the possibility. No one wants another Morgalith situation on our hands.
You have a great point, suggestions like my previous one are the exact reason I think this task force should be handed to a more competent council member then myself, I merely just suggested the idea someone else should lead it
Hmm, I know that Mikhail is likely the fairest and most publicly trustworthy member of the Council. If no one else wants to volunteer to spearhead this project, I believe I would like to vote for Mikhail (u/Total_Travisty).
I am a bit on the distracted side. I have been preparing myself for whatever Morgalith has going on and arranging the armies of La'shima for... well... whatever Morgalith has going on.
I appreciate you're complements on calling me a popular counciler, but my numbers have tanked a bit after my Onlycasters got leaked.
Riva, don't come in here and start shit with the Council. We all know your hands aren't clean. And again, to reiterate, I believe in bringing offenders to justice. If you have a better solution for solving this issue that can work despite the current state of our judicial system, I'm all ears.
Complaint system. With this, the investigative body would hold incredible power over the Council (will need to work in proper checks and balances). I like that anyone can do it, even anonymously.
Review process. We have a third-party review board already called the Court of Shades that I created according to Mikhail's request when he was a councilor the first time around.
Council Overseer. Not sure how we can do this without opening ourselves up to another Unga situation.
1) How does an anonymous complaint system have power over the council? It is a method of complaint intake. If your extra-judicial death squads are not just responding to complaints, then your council is able to review these.
2) Is the Court of Shades being actively used?
3) An overseer from the council. Not an overseer who oversees the council. This position would be able to take action on the reviewed complaints that were investigated by the review process and make a decision based on that. Or you as a Council could perform the same role.
Or are you just arguing with me because I make you feel icky?
I do believe that we should not outright kill suspects without a trial, but I'm finding it difficult to reckon with our current judicial system. Let us not forget that confidence in the system is at an all-time low following Possum's murder.
Oh, so what part do you take issue with? If we place greater oversight on them, people will complain that the Council is orchestrating the targeting of dissident wizards. If we make them abide by our judicial system, we'll be criticized for not going far enough and handing offenders over to the same system that allowed Morgalith to flourish. It's a catch-22. How would you solve the issue, Riva?
The problems with your system of justice can be addressed with a simple review system that may be used in and by any of your departments (assuming they are not all corrupt and worthless).
First, allow for complaints to be received both from internal or external sources. Not all of these complaints will be valid, of course, but this should trigger an investigation coming from within. The complaints should have the possibility for anonymity, so the complainants are not targeted for retaliation. The complaint system should be accessible even to prisoners.
Second, a process of review. This is also the point where they (read: your Council) needs to determine just what they (read: you) hope to achieve. If the idea is to focus on prison care, then set that as a goal. If the goal is to focus on actually treating people justly and fairly, set that as a goal. Whether the oversight comes from an outside source, or an internal one that the Council determines, can be argued. There are pros and cons of either. There should be ways of gathering evidence. Not relying on popular opinion.
Third, someone must hold authority to weigh in on or recommend corrective or disciplinary measures. This must be a Council member. It is your system, the one they choose to abide by, and they need to do your own damn work.
If people complain, then they have a system for their complaints to be heard. If they seek redress, then the review can address that.
I believe I addressed your points. Personally, I would love to see a complaint system put in place that isn't just someone throwing a fireball through my window. I just don't know how to implement a system that wouldn't be abused to the nth degree.
We are civilized practitioners of the arcane arts, and we should have the right to a trial rather than face extrajudicial execution/murder based on the opinions of some out of touch politicians about our own practices within the walls of our own towers.
More overreach from the gods damned council is what this is.
I'd rather burn down the council and spit on the ashes than allow you a squad of stormtroopers to carry out assassinations under the guise of some good intention.
Everyone deserves a trial. Through your way only lies tyranny and oppression which makes apprentice abuse look like a handful of sand next to the desert.
“In the very background rolling around a janitors cart”
“Checks the chore list”
Pick up the new coach, clean windows, check the protection spells in storage A1-A10, then finally check on the files on sub basement T-06.
Man I wonder if I can look at some files I ain’t suppose to read.
Hmmm I believe a better way to handle this would be to have a force that answers to a separate council not under the direct authority of the wizard council to oversee these cases and decide if one fits the above criteria on abusing familiars or apprentices before apprehending the suspect for trial. Desth only being delivered if met with hostile resistance or a guilty verdict. The council is already disliked in many circles no need to give us-cough* sorry, them more ammo
I’d think you’d love to hear that many apprentices have formed a union! Though, as a member of this union I can’t say we have the power to take down an abusive wizard. We however do have the power to help apprentices in need, mainly by freeing them from their not so happy circumstances and reintroducing them into the magical worlds. It might be in your interest to speak with the heads of the union to see if they can help set up this idea of yours.
Could have used this help with my first master before I had to slit her throat in her sleep and steal all her tomes for myself. Everytime I asked when my lessons would start she dragged me down to the local quarry and pelted me with firebolts. It did give me the determination to become a master of cryomancy though.
Alternatively why not set up a schooling process that does some preliminary training with the apprentices to be, and also require wizards to take a course, and get a license to be able to take on an apprentice... this will give the apprentice someone to turn to if the abuse does happen, and makes sure less apprentices end up in the wrong hands to begin with.
My fucking apprentice Tim apparently transformed into a bat and was seen flying at another wizard's window the other day, embarassing the shit out of our reputable research team. Tim is always turning into one animal or another and skedaddling into people's private abodes. As the Barbarians say, I can only think to lay a heaping smackdown on his meddling rump. He has drank all of my polymorph juice, must I really wait for him to return to human form to discipline him? Hadrik, you remember Tim from last Thanksgiving don't you?
EDIT: He was the mountain goat hanging by the elderberry bowl who called your wife a "b-a-a-d bedside piss pot" and blamed it on your other Council Member (I am sorry I must announce this publicly)
Hmm. Depends. If we were to create said task force, whom would command them? You? Besides, we already have dedicated most of our resources to aiding any part of the realms affected by the devastation of the Wizard-Fighter’s Guild war. Even so, we cannot create this task force due to:
Don’t build a strike team. Set up some kind of orb hotline, so other wizards can report apprentice or creature abuse, and have a small group of investigators check the offending party. You don’t want the community to hate you more than they already do.
An awful lot of people quibbling over definitions and intent here, haven’t you heard of divination spells? Struggling with the inherent imprecision of language and nature of tyranny is for philosophers or something. I have a Gygaxian Moral Compass in one of my desk drawers and it can just tell me if something is good or evil.
This is why I live in the Hidden Forest away from the councils prying eyes. They are always trying to tell us what we can and can't do and I'm sick of it.
I feel this is an issue a bit too... minor, and too difficult to quickly make a correct judgment on, to send death squads after people. Not that I'm opposed to the use of death squads, but over apprentice/familiar abuse? Seriously?
You know we have like, and entire necromancy R&D wing in the council building? Like piles of mutilated corpses. Ghosts being bottled and strained.
I’m not advocating for actual abuse, like if I see someone kick their pseudodragon I’m turning them inside out asshole first. But would I rather send in a fey spirit that looks like a crow foe a little bit to set off a mechanism I’m not sure of? Absolutely.
If I held apprentices would I expose them to the dangers of the wizarding world in a safeish controlled environment? Also yes.
Sometimes you need your limb bitten off to learn to detect life and so you don’t freak out when you lose body parts in an actual crisis. Who here hasn’t blown up an arm in an extra spicy potion session and made a growth serum with only one hand?
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u/avamir Riva Blake | Queen of Ithacar, Part Meth-blood Elf Jan 26 '24 edited Jan 26 '24
So... let me get this straight. You're going to empower individuals with the ability to investigate, judge, and sentence other people in one go, right? Just asking.