Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Silveras" data-source="post: 1347912" data-attributes="member: 6271">The police as an investigative body is a relatively new invention; 19th century, really. Up until then, the police existed primarily as "peace officers", assigned to keep the peace -- meaning they cracked the heads of anyone "disturbing the peace" (making too much of a nuisance of themselves). So.. the question becomes, has the rest of society "evolved" to match the modern police force ? Laws will be written to regulate magic, probably some variety of licensing -- along the lines of professional licenses (Certified Public Abjurers, or Royal Magical Association certified practicioners of Transmutation and Divination) -- especially for arcane magic. Most Divinations would probably be treated like wiretaps or other modern surveillance techniques -- you need probable cause to use them. If the society is particularly law-minded (could be Lawful, might just be litigious), then going "around" the requirements could "taint" the case (and get it "dismissed on a technicality"). Also, there would be likely to be some new specialized spells for such purposes. For inspirational reading, you may want to track down Randall Garret's series of short stories in the Lord Darcy cycle. "Murder and Magic", and "Too Many Magicians" are two of the titles, though I am more certain of the first title than the second. Lord Darcy is an analogue to Sherlock Holmes, a "consulting detective" in a world where magic has replaced science. His sidekick is Chief Forensic Sorcerer Sean O'Malley, and they consult Chirurgeons (as opposed to MDs) about autopsies of the victims. As an example of one of the new spells I mentioned, in one of the Lord Darcy stories, the deceased is found at the bottom of a tower with lots of shards of broken window glass scattered about. Sean uses a spell to put the glass pieces back into place as they were a moment after the window was struck, to see how the impact occurred.[Edit: Oh yeah, there is a 1st edition adventure along this line that was published in Dragon magazine, "Death of an Arch-mage". An excellent resource for this type of discussion.]</blockquote>

Verification