In Stinson, the School of Polettiques teaches bards the art of persuasive speaking designed to elevate one’s subject (often themselves) to a level of greater success and status. Through proper use of the skills taught in this school, a bard can become a well-paid and highly sought part of a politician, noble or faction’s retinue. The ultimate goal of the politique is to put their faction, order, county or even principality above all others in the eyes of the populace. A seasoned product of the school can sway the hearts and minds of even the most stalwart opponents with a rousing speech.
Headmaster Lesane Crooks teaches the master classes in personal growth for lords, barons, princes and other heads of state. His lessons are often ruthless, but speak of knowing when to build up and when to lessen the other nobles in the region, how to build defenses and how to gauge the defenses of others. He warns against flattery, speaking that the way to protect against flattery is to make others understand that telling the truth will not offend. On the subject of rule, he tells that it is safer to be feared than loved, because love is an obligation – subject to the baseness of man yet fear is preserved by the dread of punishment, which never fails.
