Sorcerously Advanced - Law in the Great Basin

Sorcerously Advanced - Law in the Great Basin

OctarineShrike 04 Feb 2019 17:55

Besides wondering if dueling in the Great Basin resembles anything from our history I don't think I've got much right now.

I did however, find a potentially interesting book on comparative law. Here's Slate Star Codex's review.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/11/13/book-review-legal-systems-very-different-from-ours/

Re: Sorcerously Advanced - Law in the Great Basin

OctarineShrike 08 Mar 2019 01:26

I realized something about the Travel Grid and the Great Basin's legal systems. The Brightgarden Schema's ostracism punishments make network effects important. When you can travel grid to other city states, being ostracized by one citystate is meaningless. Larger civilizations mean legal systems with more teeth.

Re: Sorcerously Advanced - Law in the Great Basin

Colin_Fredericks 11 Mar 2019 21:26

Oh, definitely. Ostracism and banishment only really cast you out from your home, and if you're ok with leaving it behind, it's not as much of a punishment.

Re: Sorcerously Advanced - Law in the Great Basin

OctarineShrike 12 Mar 2019 02:00

Yeah. Makes me wonder about levels of ostracism and how the word gets spread. Recognized Universal Repo listings designating a person an outlaw in the eyes of the entire… let's use Geometer's Guild for the moment because they use the Brightgarden schema as the highest level punishment, with city level outlaw listings for less heinous punishment? Small settlements would presumably recognize banished people on sight, but large cities would need repo accessible lists of outlaws too. Almost reminds me of the old western style wanted posters. The Amish and Romani made shunnedness contagious but the sheer size of cities and civilizations makes that idea unlikely to work.

Re: Sorcerously Advanced - Law in the Great Basin

OctarineShrike 04 Aug 2019 19:31

Amalgamating some stuff here. Since I'm on an Old Icelandic law kick, here's an article on a related model of Judicial dueling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holmgang, also the description of the Brightgarden Schema from the Sixth Alpha Distribution for easy reference.

[quote]
The Brightgarden Schema began as a system designed to prevent infighting and settle disputes
amongst the original Guild. It is very much a product of its time and its authors. Theft, murder,
rape, and curses are explicitly called out as crimes, but guidelines are given to determine what is
and is not a future criminal act. It allows dueling, but not vendettas. It demands restitution
rather than incarceration or punishment. Periods of ostracization and shunning are occasionally
prescribed, but there are few permanent punishments allowed. It treats all members as equals,
with the exception of the Branch Chairs (the leaders of each Branch), who are given additional
latitude and power. Members of the Branch of Integrity who are pursuing their duties are held
to a different standard, but one that is also codified and strictly enforced
[/quote]

Last edited on 04 Aug 2019 19:32 by OctarineShrike Show more

Re: Sorcerously Advanced - Law in the Great Basin

OctarineShrike 08 Aug 2019 18:55

What does Vendetta mean in the context of the paragraph about the Brightgarden Schema? Still reading the book on Legal Systems but pondering how to fit the material in with this.

For example, somebody commits murder in ancient Iceland. They get found out and get full outlawry. At that point the victims survivors can legally try to kill them. Is that vendetta?

Last edited on 08 Aug 2019 19:04 by OctarineShrike Show more

Re: Sorcerously Advanced - Law in the Great Basin

Colin_Fredericks 08 Aug 2019 19:08

In the context of Brightgarden, take "vendetta" as the more general term (a prolonged bitter feud) rather than the more specific kill-your-brother's-killer definition. Brightgarden was designed to keep medium-sized groups of magi from fragmenting, so there are a bunch of things that amount to saying "Ok, you got what you said you wanted, now drop it." No swearing eternal vengeance against someone's family.

Does that help?

Re: Sorcerously Advanced - Law in the Great Basin

OctarineShrike 08 Aug 2019 19:38

Yep. Thanks!

Re: Sorcerously Advanced - Law in the Great Basin

OctarineShrike 05 Aug 2019 04:45

Legal Concept:

Outlaw Peacewalker - Someone who can't pay weregild or sabotaged their ability to do this, commits a crime, and disconnects from War immediately afterwards. Possibly peacewalkers who hide behind their protection to troll people too.

Communities can shun/outlaw people like this depending on how well they can coordinate, but so far the only counter beyond that I can think of, especially if the Outlaw Peacewalker continues to cause the community grief and refuses to leave, or if the Peacewalker's crime was heinous enough(Fate worse than death on somebody territory for example) that the community goes straight to this, is somebody with Trickery 5 sealing the Outlaw Peacewalker into a dreamworld prison, assuming that works on peacewalkers. The Trickery 5 person chases the peacewalker and just talks to them without hurting them, the peacewalker can only run.

Any thoughts on this kind of situation?

Last edited on 05 Aug 2019 04:47 by OctarineShrike Show more

Re: Sorcerously Advanced - Law in the Great Basin

Colin_Fredericks 05 Aug 2019 13:34

Ooh, yeah I like that. That's exactly the sort of "societal consequences of magic" that will make the setting feel real. And yes, people disconnected from War can still be slid into hard-to-escape dream worlds.

Side note: Peacewalker is not a general term for someone who disconnects from War; it's a specific society, though I can imagine many folks in-game would lump them together.

Re: Sorcerously Advanced - Law in the Great Basin

OctarineShrike 06 Aug 2019 05:37

Something I realized. If a Dreamworld Prison only confines 1 listener who the story is targeted at, then this is solitary confinement.

Depending on how long dreamworld prisons can be kept going this could lead to Criminal Soulpacters causing jailbreaks, and more law abiding ones attempting to create a more humane version of the technique.

Re: Sorcerously Advanced - Law in the Great Basin

Colin_Fredericks 06 Aug 2019 13:21

Technically it's solitary, but it's a really weird version of solitary, because it's full of illusory creatures drawn from the captor's mind and the captive's. Still not great, but probably better than being stuck in a single room. I'm sure the Soulpact would want to intervene either way.

Re: Sorcerously Advanced - Law in the Great Basin

OctarineShrike 07 Aug 2019 01:04

Potential legal question for consideration in the Great Basin. There are multiple heavens and multiple hells is a confirmed fact. Somebody gets murdered and then resurrected and takes their killer to court. I'm thinking standard weregild for murder is double the Mana Energy requirement for Resurrection, assuming they end up in a benign, non-torturey afterlife.

Let's say somebody gets murdered, ends up in a torture hell, and can prove that in court after they get resurrected though. Should the penalty escalate, and if so by how much? Triple Damages? Quintuple damages? A Scaling factor based on time from murder to resurrection?

Outlawry? Something else?

Edit: I realized I was assuming a private model of prosecution here. It could probably be changed around to involve professional police/public prosecutors assuming they can seance the soul of the murder victim but I'm not sure of how precisely that'd work at the moment.

Last edited on 07 Aug 2019 01:26 by OctarineShrike Show more

Re: Sorcerously Advanced - Law in the Great Basin

OctarineShrike 09 Aug 2019 05:10

Here's a thought. How does one effectively coordinate Ostracism in a City State with a population the size of Chicago?

Universal Repository listings are a starting point, but people need to know a person is an outlaw/ostracised/relevant isolating punishment here and people might not regularly check the repos, lest they interact with them and end up ostracised themselves. The ostracised person may resort to disguises or disguise magic to continue interacting with people anyways. Branding, tattoos, and amputation are removable via becoming. How then, does one coordinate Ostracism?

I've got an idea for a technological solution.

Per Trickery 5, it's possible to weave an illusion the size of a town that all can see. Make that an infrastructural working and incorporate automated mana analysis with a database of mystical signatures of the punished somehow fed into it. If the outlaw uses magic in town in an area within the illusion system's detection radius, their mystical signature shows up on the machine, which generates an illusory mark over the head of the outlaw/punished individual, warning people not to interact with them. Blurring the mystical signature needs at least Trickery 4.

Edit: I realized a way to get the data on mystical signatures into the illusion system. If there's no tech means of storing them use people. Mystery based memory enhancement is a thing(Mystery 4 near instant perfect recall and Mystery 3 memory palaces). Experience sharing magic can be used for them to know signatures they haven't seen personally.

Thoughts? Alternative Solutions?

Last edited on 09 Aug 2019 16:43 by OctarineShrike Show more

Re: Sorcerously Advanced - Law in the Great Basin

OctarineShrike 09 Aug 2019 13:09

I realized environmental illusions might also be countered by illusions. Those could be another way an outlaw could get around an illusion based warning system. Also I realized how vulnerable to abuse my earlier idea is unless the illusions are of a quality unmatchable by individual humans. Some kind of non-falsifiable outlaw registry in the repos seems like it could help but not get around the issue of people who blast first ask questions later.

Edit: Maybe the illusions could convey an authentic, mystical signature people are taught to recognize? Mystical signature needs a person in the machine though.

Last edited on 09 Aug 2019 13:34 by OctarineShrike Show more

Re: Sorcerously Advanced - Law in the Great Basin

Colin_Fredericks 09 Aug 2019 16:42

A few alternative methods:

• You curse them to never return home.
• You curse them to alienate their friends.
• You place a mystical brand on them such that anyone who can see magic knows that they're a criminal.
• You lock them into spirit-walking.
• You release a Curse That Creeps that makes other people shun them.

Some of these would work better as Rituals than as short-term actions.

Re: Sorcerously Advanced - Law in the Great Basin

OctarineShrike 09 Aug 2019 18:19

That seems like it could work. Curses can be done in absentia with a mystic connection after all. Curses work especially well if ritual curses have more metaphysical weight. After all, curses get metaphorical saving throws with War or Self.

I'm presuming locking someone into spirit-walking is also a curse and pondering how a mystic brand would work. Some ritual equivalent to a cursed wound that lasts longer? Targeting the brand at the shadow if it's harder to fix something like that using becoming?

Edit: I realized disconnecting from War makes somebody immune to curses.

Last edited on 09 Aug 2019 19:17 by OctarineShrike Show more