Arthur Daigle's Blog - Posts Tagged "law"
Crime and Punishment on Other Place
Crime and Punishment in Other Place
All cultures and worlds have some form of laws. In ideal societies laws protect people from harm, be it from outside forces or from one another. In dictatorships laws are used to keep citizens in line. This makes being obedient to the law a good or bad trait depending on where you are and what you’re doing. But what happens to those who break the law? On Other Place, this varies heavily depending on how serious the crime is and where it is committed, but there are some commonly observed principles.
In human controlled lands, punishments of minor crimes are often settled with fines or public humiliation (like being dressed as a wombat and ridden through town by small children). More serious crimes can result in banishment and forfeiture of all property, a popular penalty meted out by kings low on cash. If the accused has skill in battle, he or she can be assigned a quest to complete for the good of the kingdom. This is also known as, “Getting someone else to do your job for you”, which is also very popular among kings. Some kings go so far as to falsely arrest warriors, wizards and other moderately powerful people for the express purpose of freeing them if they’ll do a job. Needless to say this is dangerous for the king, but the ‘criminals’ are then lauded as heroes afterwards, which in theory makes everything better.
Most human kingdoms on Other Place don’t practice capital punishment. This isn’t because of enlightened thinking, but instead due to economics. Other Place has limited technology. Magic, while powerful, isn’t cheap, so is mostly reserved for important tasks. Manpower is how most work gets done, and dead men do no work. Unless a crime is spectacularly heinous, offenders are assigned a number of years of hard labor, generally in mining, construction or harvesting timber. Prisons, while common, are often workhouses for the authorities, with no real interest in redeeming the convict.
Dwarfs take this to an extreme by purchasing convicts. Dwarf merchants regularly visit human kingdoms and buy the sentence of convicted criminals. The convicts are taken to dwarf lands as prison labor. The work is hard but generally not dangerous, as dwarfs are determined to get their money’s worth from each convict. In some cases a king or prince will falsely arrest innocent people so they can sell them to dwarfs. Most of the time the dwarfs don’t bother asking sniggling questions like guilt or innocence, merely separating the innocent from the guilty in work crews so violent offenders don’t hurt their more peaceful fellows.
Among one another, though, dwarfs tolerate no crime. Even though dwarfs have been free from the elves for a thousand years, they still remember those days with pain. Theirs is a collectivist society, member working tirelessly to promote their corporations, and fearful that they could be reconquered if they ever become weak. Anyone breaking the law of kingdom or corporation has only days to make amends before being cast out. Such exiles are no longer even considered dwarfs regardless of the crime, or even their guilt or innocence.
Dwarf corporations are cutthroat places, where every dwarf is trying to get ahead. In such conditions it is sadly common for managers to blame subordinates for their own failures and cast them out. This has gotten so commonplace that among lower class dwarfs there is what’s called blamed, where everyone knows the offender didn’t do it, but nobody can change what happened. Such dwarfs receive pity and a bit of help, but only from the lowly. Corporate management makes no distinction between the guilty and scapegoats.
Crime among elves is so commonplace it barely merits mention. Elven laws are a convoluted mess, with hundreds of thousands of contradictory rules and rulings going back fifteen hundred years. It’s possible for an accused elf to be guilty and innocent at the same time depending on which laws are applied at trial. Indeed, in elf society it’s widely accepted that being accused of a crime is often entirely political, an attempt by those in power to weaken or humiliate their enemies. Corruption in the court system is so common that judges receive no salaries and are expected to live entirely off bribes. Most elves convicted of crimes are assigned a modest fine or are assigned temporary work in lowly but essential jobs, like catching goblins and evicting them from elf lands. Elf law is gentler with subject races such as men and minotaurs, if only to keep them happy.
In serious cases, elves often flee before courts can decide their fates. Such elves run off to join rival elf factions or form their own factions. This is actually encouraged by the courts. They’d rather not execute offenders, as killing criminals in a society where nearly every elf has a record sets a bad precedent. Letting the guilty leave and annexing their abandoned property is considered less likely to promote rebellion, a good way for judges to get rich, and not as messy as beheadings. Besides, after a few decades most of these renegades come back to elven society with handsome bribes to wash away their guilt.
Oddly enough, the religious order called the Brotherhood of the Righteous is a major player in dealing with criminals. In regions where the brotherhood is powerful, they will open Halls of Redemption and insist criminals be sent there. The brotherhood believes in the perfectibility of all beings through counseling, education, prayer, and yes, some labor. Convicts sent to Halls of Redemption are given every possible opportunity to repent their errors and become upstanding members of society.
How long a convict spends in a Hall of Redemption is based on how much progress they make towards rehabilitation. Those who change their ways can expect short sentences, if their changes of heart are genuine. There are cases where violent offenders were released within months, while petty thieves who refused chances to repent remained locked up for years.
As an added bonus for the Brotherhood of the Righteous, such reformed criminals often become hardcore members of the faithful. Some go so far as to enter the clergy. More than a few evildoers attacking brotherhood churches find out the hard way that humble deacons and priests, while truly repentant of their prior misdeeds, can still break kneecaps with the best of them.
Trolls have very little crime. Partly this is because very little can seriously hurt a troll. What would be considered attempted murder elsewhere is little more than a tap on the shoulder for trolls. Adult trolls are also surprisingly rational, calm beings, more likely to discuss a matter for decades than fight over it. If two trolls find themselves at loggerheads over an issue, they often conduct scientific studies of the problem and present their findings before a body of learned scholars.
Among troll youngsters, known for being much more aggressive, the law takes a ‘boys will be boys’ attitude. Brawling and property damage by youngsters is so common that adult trolls build houses and tools so sturdy they’re hard to damage. Young trolls that are massively aggressive, common enough, are politely encouraged to spend a few decades living among men in kingdoms where their troublemaking is tolerated. A few kingdoms actively petition such youngsters to come on the grounds that their strength and resilience at work is worth the brawling.
And then there are goblins.
Goblins have no laws, nor any a concept of guilt. Whatever happened in the past can’t be changed, so they ignore it. Indeed, many goblins take the attitude that once the sun sets and rises, all is forgiven, no matter what you did to them or they did to you. There is no penalty for destroying property because goblins have nothing worth having, and if you break their stuff, so what? Sooner or later the owner was going to break it anyway. Hurting goblins is easy enough when they are small and weak, but goblins heal so fast that what would be a critical injury for a man takes at most days for a goblin to recover from.
Nor do goblins respect the laws of others. In fact, goblins take a perverse pleasure in breaking human, elf and dwarf laws. They don’t set out to hurt or kill, but theft and property damage is much celebrated among goblins. The pricier and prettier, the better. Goblins typically avoid the poor and downtrodden on the unspoken rule that you don’t hit someone when they’re down, but the rich, the powerful, the influential, oh, they’re fair game.
Goblins despise criminals who target the poor. Part of this is goblins not hitting someone when he’s down, but there’s more. Goblins are so mindbogglingly stupid that most think that everyone, be he human, elf, dwarf or even troll, is actually a goblin. To them there is only one race, theirs. The poverty of the downtrodden makes goblins feel an even greater kinship with them. Woe be to the villain who targets the poor, for goblins, though rarely roused to genuinely violent acts, are relentless in the defense of those they love.
Ironically, goblins actually like policemen, sheriffs and goblin catchers assigned to deal with them. To goblins it’s all a grand game, with them on one side and the authorities on the other. Many times they call the authorities their ‘special friends’, who play with them day after day, year after year. Many policemen are shocked to find that when they’re in danger, goblins are the first to come to their aid. If the goblins have to dress a herd of pigs as clowns and ride them through the streets at midnight into the Lord Mayor’s house to help a local sheriff, they’ll do it. Sure, it’s difficult, dangerous and probably won’t help at all, but that’s okay. There’s nothing a goblin won’t do for a friend.
All cultures and worlds have some form of laws. In ideal societies laws protect people from harm, be it from outside forces or from one another. In dictatorships laws are used to keep citizens in line. This makes being obedient to the law a good or bad trait depending on where you are and what you’re doing. But what happens to those who break the law? On Other Place, this varies heavily depending on how serious the crime is and where it is committed, but there are some commonly observed principles.
In human controlled lands, punishments of minor crimes are often settled with fines or public humiliation (like being dressed as a wombat and ridden through town by small children). More serious crimes can result in banishment and forfeiture of all property, a popular penalty meted out by kings low on cash. If the accused has skill in battle, he or she can be assigned a quest to complete for the good of the kingdom. This is also known as, “Getting someone else to do your job for you”, which is also very popular among kings. Some kings go so far as to falsely arrest warriors, wizards and other moderately powerful people for the express purpose of freeing them if they’ll do a job. Needless to say this is dangerous for the king, but the ‘criminals’ are then lauded as heroes afterwards, which in theory makes everything better.
Most human kingdoms on Other Place don’t practice capital punishment. This isn’t because of enlightened thinking, but instead due to economics. Other Place has limited technology. Magic, while powerful, isn’t cheap, so is mostly reserved for important tasks. Manpower is how most work gets done, and dead men do no work. Unless a crime is spectacularly heinous, offenders are assigned a number of years of hard labor, generally in mining, construction or harvesting timber. Prisons, while common, are often workhouses for the authorities, with no real interest in redeeming the convict.
Dwarfs take this to an extreme by purchasing convicts. Dwarf merchants regularly visit human kingdoms and buy the sentence of convicted criminals. The convicts are taken to dwarf lands as prison labor. The work is hard but generally not dangerous, as dwarfs are determined to get their money’s worth from each convict. In some cases a king or prince will falsely arrest innocent people so they can sell them to dwarfs. Most of the time the dwarfs don’t bother asking sniggling questions like guilt or innocence, merely separating the innocent from the guilty in work crews so violent offenders don’t hurt their more peaceful fellows.
Among one another, though, dwarfs tolerate no crime. Even though dwarfs have been free from the elves for a thousand years, they still remember those days with pain. Theirs is a collectivist society, member working tirelessly to promote their corporations, and fearful that they could be reconquered if they ever become weak. Anyone breaking the law of kingdom or corporation has only days to make amends before being cast out. Such exiles are no longer even considered dwarfs regardless of the crime, or even their guilt or innocence.
Dwarf corporations are cutthroat places, where every dwarf is trying to get ahead. In such conditions it is sadly common for managers to blame subordinates for their own failures and cast them out. This has gotten so commonplace that among lower class dwarfs there is what’s called blamed, where everyone knows the offender didn’t do it, but nobody can change what happened. Such dwarfs receive pity and a bit of help, but only from the lowly. Corporate management makes no distinction between the guilty and scapegoats.
Crime among elves is so commonplace it barely merits mention. Elven laws are a convoluted mess, with hundreds of thousands of contradictory rules and rulings going back fifteen hundred years. It’s possible for an accused elf to be guilty and innocent at the same time depending on which laws are applied at trial. Indeed, in elf society it’s widely accepted that being accused of a crime is often entirely political, an attempt by those in power to weaken or humiliate their enemies. Corruption in the court system is so common that judges receive no salaries and are expected to live entirely off bribes. Most elves convicted of crimes are assigned a modest fine or are assigned temporary work in lowly but essential jobs, like catching goblins and evicting them from elf lands. Elf law is gentler with subject races such as men and minotaurs, if only to keep them happy.
In serious cases, elves often flee before courts can decide their fates. Such elves run off to join rival elf factions or form their own factions. This is actually encouraged by the courts. They’d rather not execute offenders, as killing criminals in a society where nearly every elf has a record sets a bad precedent. Letting the guilty leave and annexing their abandoned property is considered less likely to promote rebellion, a good way for judges to get rich, and not as messy as beheadings. Besides, after a few decades most of these renegades come back to elven society with handsome bribes to wash away their guilt.
Oddly enough, the religious order called the Brotherhood of the Righteous is a major player in dealing with criminals. In regions where the brotherhood is powerful, they will open Halls of Redemption and insist criminals be sent there. The brotherhood believes in the perfectibility of all beings through counseling, education, prayer, and yes, some labor. Convicts sent to Halls of Redemption are given every possible opportunity to repent their errors and become upstanding members of society.
How long a convict spends in a Hall of Redemption is based on how much progress they make towards rehabilitation. Those who change their ways can expect short sentences, if their changes of heart are genuine. There are cases where violent offenders were released within months, while petty thieves who refused chances to repent remained locked up for years.
As an added bonus for the Brotherhood of the Righteous, such reformed criminals often become hardcore members of the faithful. Some go so far as to enter the clergy. More than a few evildoers attacking brotherhood churches find out the hard way that humble deacons and priests, while truly repentant of their prior misdeeds, can still break kneecaps with the best of them.
Trolls have very little crime. Partly this is because very little can seriously hurt a troll. What would be considered attempted murder elsewhere is little more than a tap on the shoulder for trolls. Adult trolls are also surprisingly rational, calm beings, more likely to discuss a matter for decades than fight over it. If two trolls find themselves at loggerheads over an issue, they often conduct scientific studies of the problem and present their findings before a body of learned scholars.
Among troll youngsters, known for being much more aggressive, the law takes a ‘boys will be boys’ attitude. Brawling and property damage by youngsters is so common that adult trolls build houses and tools so sturdy they’re hard to damage. Young trolls that are massively aggressive, common enough, are politely encouraged to spend a few decades living among men in kingdoms where their troublemaking is tolerated. A few kingdoms actively petition such youngsters to come on the grounds that their strength and resilience at work is worth the brawling.
And then there are goblins.
Goblins have no laws, nor any a concept of guilt. Whatever happened in the past can’t be changed, so they ignore it. Indeed, many goblins take the attitude that once the sun sets and rises, all is forgiven, no matter what you did to them or they did to you. There is no penalty for destroying property because goblins have nothing worth having, and if you break their stuff, so what? Sooner or later the owner was going to break it anyway. Hurting goblins is easy enough when they are small and weak, but goblins heal so fast that what would be a critical injury for a man takes at most days for a goblin to recover from.
Nor do goblins respect the laws of others. In fact, goblins take a perverse pleasure in breaking human, elf and dwarf laws. They don’t set out to hurt or kill, but theft and property damage is much celebrated among goblins. The pricier and prettier, the better. Goblins typically avoid the poor and downtrodden on the unspoken rule that you don’t hit someone when they’re down, but the rich, the powerful, the influential, oh, they’re fair game.
Goblins despise criminals who target the poor. Part of this is goblins not hitting someone when he’s down, but there’s more. Goblins are so mindbogglingly stupid that most think that everyone, be he human, elf, dwarf or even troll, is actually a goblin. To them there is only one race, theirs. The poverty of the downtrodden makes goblins feel an even greater kinship with them. Woe be to the villain who targets the poor, for goblins, though rarely roused to genuinely violent acts, are relentless in the defense of those they love.
Ironically, goblins actually like policemen, sheriffs and goblin catchers assigned to deal with them. To goblins it’s all a grand game, with them on one side and the authorities on the other. Many times they call the authorities their ‘special friends’, who play with them day after day, year after year. Many policemen are shocked to find that when they’re in danger, goblins are the first to come to their aid. If the goblins have to dress a herd of pigs as clowns and ride them through the streets at midnight into the Lord Mayor’s house to help a local sheriff, they’ll do it. Sure, it’s difficult, dangerous and probably won’t help at all, but that’s okay. There’s nothing a goblin won’t do for a friend.
