It took a while for me to finish that book, but I finally delivered at my attempt at fleshing out Brightgarden schema derived legal systems for modern readers.
Historical Context
The Brightgarden Schema in its original iteration was intended to allow power-hungry wizard oligarchs ruling over magicless mortals to coexist, with the pre-gift immortal masters of Deduction, Procurement, Education, Expansion, and Integrity at the top of the metaphorical heap, dealing with threats to the government too large to be handled by lesser members. In the aftermath of the gift, adaptations were hastily added to account for the fact that everyone is now capable of stronger magic than anyone ever dreamed possible, along with new legal considerations such as the ability to disconnect from war after committing crimes.
Integrity Branch
The Integrity Branch does a wide variety of things, including but not limited to:
- Dealing with threats to Geometer Society at large too small to merit the attention of the masters
- Gathering intelligence on people in the event curse administration via mystic connection becomes necessary
- Providing arbitration/investigation/trickery disconnected individuals for verifying peoples claims in disputes
- Attacking sufficiently dangerous outlaws
- General Peacekeeping
- Mana Fine Collection(Via Manavore if necessary)
- Administering Death Sentences and Dreamworld Imprisonments on individuals deemed worth the effort.
- Administering Dueling Grounds
Judicial Dueling
In a world where the strongest wizards are walking natural disasters, capable of bringing down armies singlehandedly, one of the biggest priorities of the government is prevention of internal disputes from escalating into violence, and that any violent internal disputes are conducted in an orderly fashion, with measures in play to mitigate collateral damage and ensure they end quickly. Penalties for unsanctioned dueling and street brawls are paid to the government.
The government’s interest in ensuring orderly and quick resolution of violent disputes, in conjunction with ubiquitous immortality removing fatalities, means anybody can challenge anybody to a duel. Failure to attend or send a champion if challenged to a duel leads to the other person being ruled legally correct, meaning at best, you will lose face, at worst, you will become an outlaw. Rules of engagement are negotiated in advance, but all duels must be at a sanctioned dueling ground designed for containment of collateral damage with a member of the integrity branch as a witness. Continuing a dispute after it has been resolved, whether by dueling or arbitration, is harshly punished and may lead to outlawry. Inability to agree on terms of a duel leads to rules of engagement being determined by the Integrity Branch witness.
Legal Philosophy
The original Brightgarden Schema was primarily a tool for immortal oligarchs to count coup upon each other, so punishments readers from the modern era may recognize, such as imprisonment and execution were extremely rare and highly unpleasant things given the difficulty of confining wizards and the destructive power of a wizard with nothing left to lose. The most common penalty under the Brightgarden Schema is mana-based fines, paid to the victim or their survivors. There is no multiplier for the status of the victim, it takes the exact same amount of benevolent mana to resurrect a rich victim as a poor victim. For greater offenses, or for those unable or unwilling to pay the fine, servitude agreements, along with levels of outlawry supported by curses(delivered via mystic connection targeting when necessary) and/or elaborate systems of illusion magic are imposed as alternative punishments.
Given the size of some penalties, it is not unheard of for wizards to form payment assistance coalitions with their own bylaws and rules of behavior. If they are capable of doing so, these groups also at times punish outlaws who have wronged their members.
Difficulties of Imprisonment and Execution in a Post-Gift World
The tools of magic are diverse, and tattoos/body modification art are popular across a wide range of civilizations and magical styles as magical foci. The only sure-fire way to render a wizard fully helpless is to deprive them of mana via Null Zone. Building a prison in a null zone however, strikes weak and dumb inmate and jailer alike by depriving them of their physical and cognitive enhancements, making it a job few would voluntarily accept.
Disconnection from War grants an individual an inviolate defense against harm at the cost of their ability to harm others, with the only known form of circumvention requiring a master of illusion magic to hunt their disconnected target, telling them a story to trap them in a dreamworld in pseudo-solitary confinement with dream creatures derived from the minds of jailer and inmate. If one is also willing to disconnect themselves from Mystery, forfeiting their ability to learn or remember coherent information, they can make themselves undetectable on a nearly conceptual level. Disconnection rituals can be performed in 5 minutes or less, making them performable in the immediate aftermath of some crimes.
The existence of the travel grid makes it easy for individuals to flee to arbitrary locations beyond a civilization’s legal jurisdiction.
Barring usage of Soul Repositories(Which can draw the ire of the Soulpact), resurrection of the dead is possible albeit difficult, and afterlives are a known quality. Multiple heavens and hells are known to exist, and this has led to legal concerns over the level of unpredictableness of this as punishment. Further, killing one with the Gift who does not wish to die requires knowledge of, along with the ability to exploit their immortality flaw.
Killing and imprisoning people is extremely difficult in the Great Basin, and an individual will have to prove themselves worth the effort to warrant it.
Fates Worse Than Death
While the modes of punishment most recognizable to modern readers are prohibitively difficult, the circumstances of the basin have opened new frontiers of cruelty. Wizards who lose fights against exceptionally vindictive adversaries may find their opponent taking their decapitated but still living and aware heads with them. Decapitation, while an imperfect method, renders a sizable number of wizards helpless. Wizards may also find themselves dealing with unfortunate fates such as being cast into the Red Space, or being killed by a wizard who knows them well enough to know they will be sent to a particularly nasty hell. Inflicting fates worse than death is commonly regarded as the worst possible crime in all civilizations, and will draw the ire of the Soulpact should they become aware of it.
Trickery DIsconnection and Legal Testimony
Trickery disconnected individuals have significant value in investigation and interrogation for their capacity to spot deception, and are utterly incapable of any deception. While this does not render testimony fully unimpeachable, given the existence of techniques for the cultivation of alternate personalities and memory editing, the word of an individual disconnected from Trickery is commonly considered worth more in any legal proceeding then on who has not.
For example, in a he said/she said stealing case between two individuals in good standing with their civilization with no other evidence, if the defendant is willing to testify while disconnected from trickery that they did not commit the theft but the accuser refuses to make their claim while disconnected or to an individual disconnected from trickery, the accuser will owe mana damages to the defendant.
Guidelines/ideas for Legal Punishments(I've only got one right now)
Murder - Penalty varies depending on afterlife status of victim. If the victim is verifiably in a heaven, twice the mana value of a resurrection. If the victim is verifiably in a hell but intent to damn cannot be proven, quadruple the mana value of a resurrection. If intent to damn is proven, civilization level full outlawry.
Degrees of Outlawry(This is tenuous and I’m not sure how to extend on this right now)
- City State Level Ostracism
- City State Level Lesser Outlawry
- City State Level Full Outlawry(All of an outlaw's seizeable property is seized at this point, to be split between the state/outlaw's dependents/outlaw's victims)
- Civilization Level Lesser Outlawry
- Civilization Level Full Outlawry(All of an outlaw's seizeable property is seized at this point, to be split between the state/outlaw's dependents/outlaw's victims)
