Nicodemus

OOC: MC name? mikjangle Skype (Not required but recommended): n/a RP: Name? Pierce Dinnet Are you applying to become a full loyalty member or only part? Full Time Are you applying to become a merchant or a hired sword? Merchant Why do you want to join the Dalavician Merchant Company? I have always been interested in mercantile and analytic work. The company seems like a fine institution that I would enjoy being a part of. (Full time only) Do you agree to the merchant’s agreement? Aye. (Optional) Do you have a specific trade you wish to deal in [ie. fish, potatoes, leather armor, ect.]? I would very much like work in the loaning process, but I am also interested in the sale of ores.

-OOC- Minecraft UserName: mikjangle Do you have Skype / TS: I have skype. How many hours a week are you on: ~20 -Employee Application (RP)- Name: Pierce Dinnet Age: 31 Race: Human Employee Type (Independent or Nation): Nation Job Applying for: Merchant What makes you good at the job your applying for: I ran a small inn for a time in Anthos, and am trained in maths, with a keen eye for potential avenues for profit. Why do you wish to join the company: I believe it would be a great joy to work with Black Water, and that I would be a great long term asset to the company.

Out-Of-Character Information What’s your Minecraft Account Name?: mikjangle How old are you?: 19 Have you ever roleplayed on a minecraft server before? If so, where?: Yes, I roleplayed here for about a year from 2012 to 2013, and am interested in returning to LotC. Have you applied to this server before? (Please link past applications): Well, yes I did two years ago. http://www.lordofthecraft.net/topic/61093-janglins-2nd-submission/?hl=nicodemus How did you hear about us?: I don't really remember. What do you think the server will be like?: If it's anything like it was a year ago, then I expect a fun server with a lot of exciting player interaction.It may not be free of its issues with meta/powergaming and the like, but the community, which is quite strong, does its best to avoid these issues and right them when they do occur. Have you read and agreed to the rules?: Yes I have. What’s the rule you agree with the most?: I honestly love the mechanical rule. Do you understand combat rules, and what you can and can’t do if you do choose to roleplay as a villain?: Yes I do. Are there any rule(s) that confuse you or don’t make sense?: The choice of default PvP in ties does confuse me, but I understand the rule in a literal sense, and while abide by it happily. Definitions What is roleplaying?: It means to take on a new persona and interact with the environment and others while maintaining that persona. What’s metagaming?: Metagaming is to use OOC information IC, often times to give oneself an edge over other player unfairly. What’s powergaming?: Typically scene in a fighting-type scenario, and often coming hand-in-hand with some metagaming, Powergaming is to roleplay one's character as having unrealistic abilities, mainly to overcome a situation where player is probably going to 'lose', i.e. being outnumbered four to one, so all of a sudden the player is Bruce Lee's tougher big brother. In-Character Information What’s your character called?: Pierce Dinnet What race are they? (and sub-race if applicable): Human What gender are they?: Male How old are they?: 31 Give us a highlight of their past, What life events make your character the person they are today? This is your character's biography: Pierce was born to Marin Mesa, a Southeron woman in the town of Shattenburg. His father, a Northerner and writer named Donellan Mesa, ran off when he was still an infant. His mother raised him in a two room apartment above the inn she worked at, cooking and cleaning. He took his mother's Maiden name, Dinnet, once he grew old enough to understand that his father had abandoned them. Unlike many who grow up as peasantry, Pierce never learned to accept manual labor. He detested hard physical work, and became obsessed with the lifestyles of nobles and the successful merchants. He was determined to live a life of ease and opulence, and studied maths in his free time to prepare for his expected wealth. Unfortunately for Pierce, no one was handing out Knighthoods or Lordships, so he would have to get his fortune the hard way. Having very little start-up money, he decided to go in with some friends and invest in starting their own inn outside of New Abresi. It was slow to get going, but thanks to some shrewd agreements with their suppliers, drawn up by Dinnet, the inn began to prosper. They just started to come into some real money when the floods began. One of the quakes tore the inn to pieces, and killed Pierce's associates. Oddly enough though, the food stores in the inn survived, and Dinnet sold them off to the united forces of Anthos for a respectable sum. He spent his time in the Fringe, mostly as a coping mechanism, blowing all of his money on parties and clothing, expecting to earn it all back and more buy starting a lumber mill. Unlike his previous venture though, this idea fell flat and never took off. Now, all that he had left coming to Thales were the expensive clothes that he had purchased, and numerous plans to make himself a fortune. What are they like? (personality): Pierce is highly excitable and a bit egocentric. This means he can be quite the entertaining companion, but can also get out of hand sometimes when he goes off on a power trip. He is also quite the philogynist, and can be borderline creepy with his persistence when courting women. What are their ambitions?: Dinnet strongly believes that financial success is key to having a happy life. He also believes that a rising tide lifts all boats. So his only ambition is to live a life of luxury, and bring some friends along if he can. More specifically, Dinnet has a few unique ideas about buying and flipping various goods to turn a profit. Do they have any special skills? What are their weaknesses? (Try to list a few of both): + Highly Persuasive + Pretty Good in a knife or fist fight + Tenacious in his attention to commerce and trained in maths, making him a ferocious trade partner - Terrible with larger weapons and bows - Not one for manual labor - Narcissistic Give us a description of how they look?: He has a complexion that betrays his Northern-Southeron mixed heritage, and short, slick brown hair and beard. He dresses to the nines, with a wolf fur coat and any one of numerous pairs of fine wool shirts and soft leather pants. He often sports a gold belt buckle and necklace with a polished redstone pendant He is on the taller side (around 6' 3"), and walks with a long, slow gait. Please give us a screenshot of your character’s skin:

Nicodemus rubs his temples. "Is there anything else of note in this tome? Or is this more a thing of historic import than theoretical?"

Nicodemus grits his teeth at the term 'lesser being'. He refills his cup and looks at the image, shrugging. "Who the blazes is it? Some toff Mali mage?" Nico rests his chin on his hand, squinting at the page.

Nicodemus raises his brow at the highbrow elf. He leans back in his chair and begins rummaging through his pack producing a few wooden cups and a large bottle of some brew with his name and a picture of sugar cane on it. Listening all the while, he pours himself a drink and pushes the bottle and other cups toward the center of the table. Nico takes a swig and strokes his beard. "Not that the wide dissemination of knowledge is something that Haelun'or cares much for either."

Nicodemus nods. "The dissemination of knowledge is not just something they are uninterested in, but quite apparently antithetical to their organization. What little I can imagine that they would be genuinely willing to share, regardless of what they may have already promised, would not be worth such large and apparent risks."

Nicodemus straightens in his seat. "I say we ignore them completely. Make no interactions what-so-ever, and make no formal declaration on our stance toward them. This way, we continue to keep ourselves out of the focus of other nations regardless of how the Delvers fair. Also, the Delvers won't be able to absorb us if we keep them from getting a foot in the door."

Nicodemus chuckles. looking over at Salazar. He tips his chair back, crossing his left leg over the other. "That would be quite the task. I could arrange interviews for you with what friends I have in Orenian nobility that still have a pulse to help with that. Seeing as understanding the current political situation requires an understanding of history, it may be difficult to decide when to begin lest it be arbitrary."

Nicodemus, leans forward, raising his hand. He smells slightly of ale and cake, but his words are cogent. "As a project for the Department of Erudition, I would like to propose a thoughtful questioning and an attempted construction of a functional philosophy of rights. The central questions being whether they exist, what they are, their origins, and what that means for an individual's or group's relationship with the world." He then leans back in his chair, smiling and eyeing everyone.

Nicodemus smiles, stroking his chin as he thinks about what he wants to talk about at the meeting. He kills a mug of ale and begins to go through his books.

Nicodemus sits outside his mountainside home, looking about. "No... I was here before the Dwarves laid claim to my land... And I'll stay. Feck 'em, I'm done being pushed about."

Nicodemus sees the note, and pins a response. "I have ten stacks of gravel. I will gladly meet at the Cloud Temple or elsewhere to trade."

In every nation, in various cities, in pubs, outside stores, near noticeboards, and secretly tucked into some library shelves, are several pamphlets. Each one contains the same writing, but they all seem to vary widely in both the quality of the penmanship, and the age of the paper. It is apparent that these are all, the dozens and dozens of them, hand copies that have taken a very long time to duplicate. On the front of each pamphlet, in large letters is the word: Law. Underneath, in small cursive is a name unheard-of, clearly a pen name: Niphred Feld. Law The races have been given by God the gift which includes all others. This gift is life: physical, intellectual, and moral life. But life cannot sustain itself without action. The creator of life has assigned each individual the responsibility of preserving, developing, and perfecting it. In order that one may accomplish this, he has provided all with a stunning array of capabilities, and he has put us in the midst of a variety of natural resources. By the application of our capabilities to these natural resources we convert them into products, and use them. This process is necessary in order that life may run its appointed course. Life, capabilities, and production, in other words: individuality, liberty, and property, these are what define all races. Regardless of the slyness of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all legislation, and are superior to it. Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed at the start that induced the races to make laws. So then, what is law? It is the collective union of the individual right to protect oneself. Each of us has a natural right to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our capabilities but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our capabilities? If every person has the right to defend, even by force, his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right, indeed its basis for existing and its legitimacy, is based on individual right. And the common force that protects this collective right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than this. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups. If what has been said is true, then the Law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties. If any nation were founded on this basis, it seems to me that order would prevail among the people, in thought as well as in deed. It seems to me that such a nation would have the simplest, easy to accept, economical, nonoppressive, just, and enduring government imaginable, whatever its political form might be. But, unfortunately, law by no means confines itself to its appropriate role. And when it surpasses its proper functions, it does not do so merely in a few unimportant and debatable matters. The law has gone further than this; it has acted in direct opposition to its own purpose. The law has been used to destroy its own objective. It has been applied to annihilating the justice that it was supposed to maintain; to limiting and destroying rights which its real purpose was to respect. The law has placed the collective force at the disposal of the corrupt who wish, without risk, to exploit the person, liberty, and property of others. It has converted plunder into a right, in order to protect plunder. And it has converted lawful defense into a crime, in order to punish lawful defense. ((This is a recreation of several main parts, especially the intro, of a mid-1800's essay by Frederic Bastiat. It is, quite obviously, without copyright, but I have still changed parts, both for the sake of prose, and to change references to 'men' to races. I also changed a lot of it so I don't get unduly attacked about plagarism.))