Conclave vault
No, Grandmaster. It is not 'yours'.
It is ours.
Overview
The Conclave has a store of resources, usually referred to collectively as the Conclave vaults. The resources exist predominantly in the form of crystal mana and ilium, but some other materials also end up in vaults. These reserves are built up from a range of sources including donations, Conclave politics and seizures from sorcerers and barbarians.
Each Conclave order has its own vault. At the start of each summit, all materials collected since the last summit are divided up between the vaults, in proportion to the size of the order as determined by the Principle of Precedence at the previous summit. Once the resources have been added to a vault, they are considered to be the property of that order; they may only withdraw materials from their vault to fund a gambit.
Allocation
Resources are divided among the orders based on the Principle of Precedence as recorded at the previous summit. Civil servants divide the Conclave resources between the orders based on all the magi counted in total at the previous summit. For example, if the total precedence of the previous summit was 100, and 100 mana crystals were available, and the total precedence for the Sevenfold Path was 30, then 30 mana crystals would go into their vault.
Divisions are rounded down and any resources that are not allocated as a result are held over until the next summit.
Bequests
Any Imperial citizen, and anyone with whom the Conclave has declared amity, can approach the civil service and donate materials to the order of their choice. On rare occasions they may donate materials to the Conclave as a whole. When this happens, the civil service announces the bequest to the Conclave and any magician can present a declaration of entitlement to suggest that the bequest be either added to the vault of an order, or assigned to a specific individual. Until a bequest is assigned, it is kept in trust by the civil service. Once assigned, the assignment is permanent; while a bequest can be assigned by the Conclave, they have no ability to take the bequest back again or reassign it once their decision has been made.
This is a common way for Eternals to support either the Conclave or the specific orders for which they have an affinity.
Gambits
Conclave materials and resources are granted to the orders to allow them to pursue their political and magical agendas for the good of the Empire. However, to prevent corruption, the only way for an order to access the contents of their vault is by resourcing a gambit.
Resources
Crystal Mana
There is a large pool of crystal mana available to the Conclave at the start of each solstice or equinox, referred to as the font. The font is divided up amongst the vaults of the Orders before the first Conclave session of each summit.
The basic font, as of the Winter Solstice 377YE is 122 crystal mana. This basic pool is supplemented by any mana collected under the Principle of Proportions as well as mana seized from sorcerors and enemies of the Empire. The amount of mana in the font may vary from season to season, and any remainder that cannot be allocated to a vault carries over to the next season.
Crystal mana can also be added to an order's vault directly by the grandmaster's power to fund their order; from mana expended during the election of a grandmaster and from bequests.
| Precedence Order | Ilium |
| First | 3 rings |
| Second | 3 rings |
| Third | 3 rings |
| Fourth | 2 rings |
| Fifth | 2 rings |
| Sixth | 1 ring |
Ilium
The Conclave has small reserves of ilium, which are distributed to the vaults. They are predominantly requested by gambits that involve either permanent enchantments or the creation of artefacts to be used by magicians.
The ilium is not distributed pro-rata. Rather, it is divided into six "pots" which are distributed to the orders based on their order of precedence (the first pot goes to the largest order at the previous summit, and so on down to the smallest order).
Raw materials
Each Order's vault receives a trickle of ingots and measures of special materials. These are primarily delivered as gifts or bequests from Imperial citizens. Unlike crystal mana, the raw materials are bequeathed to an order and are placed directly in that order's vault.
As with the ilium, these materials are generally used to resource gambits that involve crafting items for magicians, although some gambits intentionally substitute materials for crystal mana (for those rituals that allow materials to be substituted for crystal mana, or for those covens with access to covenstones that allow such substitution for a specific realm).
Rare Items
On occasions, enchanted items, scrolls or ritual texts may end up in the possession of a specific order's vault or the Conclave as a whole. Items controlled by the Conclave as a whole using a endowment. It is important to note that an item held in a vault can only be accessed using a gambit that specifically requests the item. This is risky - if the Order refuses the gambit then the entire gambit fails.