The Tessatore

The Numan Empire appears to have been, from what little has been written in 7th Sea canon about it, a fairly egalitarian society. There are hints that gender roles were not so strict and that women had a place in public life. How, in the years after the Bargain and the coming of the First Prophet (who preached a message of equality himself), did this Numan society become the Vodacce we see in 1668?

We're told that the men feared the women's sorcery and so sought to control them physically. That's all well and good, except that the women can control fear. Why didn't the strongest early strega set about pulling strands to force the male-female relationships in Vodacce into ones where they dominated the men, instead of visa-versa?

The Player's Handbook cautions that Sorte can have unintended consequences. In effect, the strega is specifying an "ends" by working the strands. It's up to Fate and the universe to figure out what "means" will be employed to bring the ends about. The means might also have other, unforeseen effects that the strega wasn't planning on and may not want. It's left deliberately vague as a method for GMs to curb reckless Sorte use.

What if the Tessatore had a reason to curb reckless Sorte use as well?

Sorte is, after all, a Bargain sorcery, handed down by Legion and not with humanity's best interests in mind. The bad, unexpected effects, over time, all add up and make life worse - more pain, more suffering, more evil. You can try to use more Sorte to counter it and make things better - but you get more unintended consequences. It's a positive feedback loop.

That makes the Tessatore the least of all possible evils - a damping system that keeps the strega as ignorant as possible, so they will see and recognize fewer opportunities to use their powers. That's the real reason they are content to allow Vodacce's women to remain ignorant and cloistered. Men don't necessarily understand what Sorte can and can't do effectively, and the strega do keep them in the dark about it as much as possible, to increase their appearance of power. So the men probably aren't making the most efficient use of their wives' sorcery. The wives can't see or understand the workings of the men's Game around them from within their rooms, and so cannot meddle to the extent that they would if they were playing the Game themselves.

The most powerful strega - the ones most likely to start an infernal feedback loop through reckless use of powerful sorcery - are brought into the Tessatore for monitoring, re-education and, if they refuse to moderate their behavior, punishment. In theory, once they understand the repercussion of too much Sorte, they will willingly stand with their sisters to monitor the rest of the strega population.

Runaways get outside this system, which makese them dangerous. They could go to Vendel, for crying out loud, where no one knows anything about how Legion works through sorcery, and be tricked into doing all kinds of powerful magic that brings more and more evil into their lives and into the world. Runaways and freethinkers are more likely to do uncontrolled sorcerous experiments and must be stopped. This is why disobedience is punished so harshly, even with death.

Politics are now a distinctly secondary concern to the Tessatore. Let the men take care of it. Any Tessatora neglecting her duties to monitor and control the local strega will be reprimanded or punished. They involve themselves in the men's Game only rarely. For example, if some man decided that he was going to get an army of strega together to bless his captains before battles, or some other large-scale application of Sorte, then they step in and protest. This also handily explains why every Vodacce Prince is not bedecked with Blessings from all fifty of his aunts, cousins, sisters, and daughters.

The Church's policy has been carefully influenced. The strega don't want to give up their power - like Elaine or the Vesten, they still think they can work this Bargain and maybe win. It takes vigilance on their part, though, to use their power "just enough" to get what they want but without feeding the demons too much. The Church's mild censure, together with Tessatore pressure, create a climate where Sorte is permitted, but over-use of Sorte is unacceptable. Possibly, the migration of the Hierophant's seat to Castille was encouraged, because the hypocrisy was getting hard to maintain with the Hierophant sitting right there in Numa. Efforts to bring the Hierophant back, when strega notice them, are similarly torpedoed.

Even the men's attitudes might be the least of evils. In the worst possible world, one sex would utterly dominate the other, through physical coersion or sorcerous manipulations. In the current version, the men expect obedience but the women are also feared. It's not the healthy, partner-partner sort of relationship one might ideally like, but it's better balance than the master-slave alternative.

Knowing the risks of powerful Sorte, the Tessatore would be most likely to use their least sorcerously powerful options first to avoid potential problems. For instance, she might first examine your opponents' strands and see if there isn't the making of a mundane blackmail there. If that fails, then it's on to tugging and stretching, and finally to making and breaking. From a GMing point of view, this makes for an excellent, rational reason for a powerful Villain not to utterly crush beginning Heroes with powerful magic in the first encounter.

This framework allows for Tessatore Heroes, who are valiantly trying to hold back a darkness without exterminating their sisters and mothers. It allows for Villain Tessatore who enjoy playing with people and tormenting lesser strega - all in the name of their duty, of course.

And the best part?

The Tessatore could be completely and totally wrong.

The absolute truth of their beliefs has no bearing on whether or not this system works. They believe it to be true, and that's good enough. If an individual GM has decided that the Truth of sorcery and Legion and all that is different, this all still works - so long as the observed effects of Sorte are still the same.