Letter accompanying the report of the Subcommittee on Honorary Degrees to the Academic Court of the Ildrach, DR 689, from the Subcommittee Chair Oneks Marhonen Vantiss, Archmage of the Fourth Rank. The Subcommittee on Honorary Degrees recommends to the Honor Court those artefexis of significant achievement who are deserving of recognition by the Ildrach, although they have not studied there. At the time Archmage Vantiss is writing, it had become customary to confer degrees on artefexis who were popular in one of the metropolitan areas but who had not conducted much original research. Vantiss’ letter was leaked and circulated by several artefexis who were sympathetic to his complaints. He retired under some suspicion shortly afterward.
Your Honors of the Court,
The Subcommittee on Honorary Degrees respectfully submits our recommendations for conferral of degrees with distinction, along with substantiation in the form of original interviews, example works, testimony, and our studied analysis. The Court be pleased, we avoided nominations that in the eyes of the subcommittee members were not sufficiently scholarly as to warrant so prestigious an honor. We recognize that it has become fashionable to invite wealthy, influential, and indeed celebrity artefexis who have not meaningfully contributed to the knowledge of Arte but who are being cultivated as patrons or donors. We heartily disagree.
We further note that the quality of student being admitted to these august halls has declined deplorably in the recent score of years. No longer are rigorous standards upheld during the novice year or throughout apprenticeship, but students who have no grasp of fundamentals are being pushed along because of their parentage or because the school lacks the will to enforce the necessary discipline. We who attempt to hold a higher bar are being castigated as “gatekeepers.” Indeed, one might agree with such a title, if it refers to the security of the Portals at Cantonaïas, which are largely unknown to the modern student. Who now graduating understands how the Portals are bound, what they bind, and the terrifying danger that faces everything we know and love if they should fail? Would “creative and unheard voices” be able to stem the tide of horror that would then spew forth?
Something also must be said about the constant criticism that those in the Towers are “out of touch” with the practicalities of daily life. In the skilled trades, in the merchant stalls, even in the city halls one often hears, “The Iron Road, not The Terrazzo.*” We do not in any way disparage those who dedicate their lives to the perfection of their bodies and minds in the Gymnasia, but if we are to rely solely on battlemages to protect us from the ravages of the jungles and wildes of Iferwon, we are doomed. Not even an army of such soldiers could stand against the full onslaught of what seeks to prey on this world, for they are innumerable. Only the subtle artes can hope to weave the bindings and navigate the treacherous Synoptic, and to answer riddles that have lain secret for millions of years.
They are few who can follow this steep and narrow path to the summit of knowledge and power. There can be no fudging or coddling along this way, no weakening of resolve, no reduction in the exacting standards demanded of the artefex. We are the gatekeepers, the watchful, the first and last defense. Our highest awards ought to honor that achievement.
Respectfully,
Oneks Marhonen Vantiss
Archmage of the Fourth Rank
Chair of the Standing Committee for Honorary Degrees
*The Iron Road starts at the southern border of Hälshkräg Felys and proceeds into the deep south, to the cold wastes. The Road must be traveled if one wishes to study at Rik to learn the elite techniques of battlemages. The Terrazzo, of course, is the giant stone road that leads from Tramendene to just west of Arondraka. Here, it is associated with the cosmopolitan, genteel culture of the Drak Basin.
