Viking Justice

[sword-dancer]

I found out something reasonably useful.

Using a Viking-style criminal justice system works very well with D&D. In fact, it works much better than a "normal" justice system.

The key facts are:
If you kill or wound someone, there is a fixed amount of money you have to pay as compensation.

The injured party (or family) can refuse in which case a blood feud results.



One tip: make the amount of money signifcant. Also, it should be scaled to the social importance of the person killed or wounded (wounded should be 1/4 to 1/2 the killed figure). So killing an Earl costs much more than a dung-shoveller.

You could remember that weregiel is only acceptable if, it wasn´t coldblooded murder, in such a case the nidung wouldn`t be allowed to pay his price out.

It was considerered dishonorable"to wear his father in a moneybag".
So i think this would only accepted if it was selfdefense, an accident or such thing, or provoked attack.
Or two allied families who didn`t want to get in blood feud over one or two black sheep.
This could be useful if players misuses this.

I've tended towards the feudal justice system before, but that isn't really suitable as almost any player will go for Trial by Combat over any of the others.

Since trial by combat is seen as judgement by the gods, i doesn`t see your problem, the innocvent or who has right will always win, the other is doomed to loose.
Or we go Warhammer and the accused must face a judicial champion, a weaponmaster tfight his way out.

 

[mmadsen]

Every person in the society has an honor price based on their enech score (adapted from the 2e Celts Historical reference).

Are there any plans to update the 2E historical references for 3E?

 

[Maerdwyn]

It's a shame, but I don't think so. They were some of my favorite supplements from the mid-2e era.

They didn't sell well at all, however - in fact, they are some of the only 2e books still unsold on my FLGS's shelves.

Avalanche press's stuff is sort of carrying the ball for historically-inspired d20 stuff right now. Earth 1066 is in the works (I'm working on their second supplement on the Eastern Mediterranean - my section is on the Fatimid Caliphate). Other than that, I usually just have to adapt stuff from the Fordham University Medieval Sourcebook for my earth-based games.

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook.html

 

[Rashak Mani]

How much must I pay up if I kill you then ?

Well being a very spoiled rich adventurer I think I might be tempted to buy around my legal prerrogative of killing anyone I want.

 

[Maerdwyn]

How much must I pay up if I kill you then ?

Well being a very spoiled rich adventurer I think I might be tempted to buy around my legal prerrogative of killing anyone I want.

Note that in Viking society a family could refuse the payment and instead start a blood feud.

In my campaign, if the party started exploiting the system as an excuse to justify senseless murder, the second person they killed (It would be hard, but I'd probably let them get away with one by paying the blood price, just to let them think they can get away with it.) would turn out to be a very important noble - someone with either a blood price so high that the party could not afford it and/or with a family that had the resources and abilities necessary to attain fitting vengeance for their slain family member.

 

[sword-dancer]

How much must I pay up if I kill you then ?

Well being a very spoiled rich adventurer I think I might be tempted to buy around my legal prerrogative of killing anyone I want.

You could remember that weregiel is only acceptable if, it wasn´t coldblooded murder, in such a case the nidung wouldn`t be allowed to pay his price out.

It was considerered dishonorable"to wear his father in a moneybag".
So i think this would only accepted if it was selfdefense, an accident or such thing, or provoked attack.
Or two allied families who didn`t want to get in blood feud over one or two black sheep.
This could be useful if players misuses this.

Under circumstances the nidung would be hanged or drowned in a moor or bog.

 

[Falcmir]

If the party starts exploiting the system I think there are plenty of options. Such as the weak evil family member of a slain individual taking the weregild since they are unlikely to be able to defeat them in combat and using the money to hire assasins. Of course that's not legal but evil people dont always follow the law

Wont the players love finding out that they ended up paying for the assasins that are coming after them.

 

[mmadsen]

How much must I pay up if I kill you then? Well being a very spoiled rich adventurer I think I might be tempted to buy around my legal prerrogative of killing anyone I want.

The wergeld is more like the payoff in a wrongful death lawsuit -- only expanded in scope to include many wrongful deaths we'd consider criminal (but short of outright murder).

 

[Nissien]

Another option to introduce is to have the victims whose deaths haven't been settled properly come back as draugar. These are basically zombies, but you can make them harder to get rid of, depending on the person killed and the nature of the killing. Of course, a draug will keep coming after its murderer until justice has been served or until it has been staked out in a bog.

(Not entirely historically accurate, but it suits the system. Check Elizabeth Boyer's Skarpsey novels for more about draugar.)

 

[Viking Bastard]

...draugar...

Draugar direct translation = "Ghost".

Zombies???