D&D 5E Help Running a Courtroom Trial/Witch-Hunt

[Hriston]

Very few places are innocent until proven guilty. Most you end up in jail until they find time for you and then the lawyer you get is assigned.

Oh for sure. He's already in custody. The watch captain that the PCs reported the priest to is a real do-gooder and wasted no time snatching up the priest and his acolytes, and searching his residence for evidence. So he's being treated as guilty in that respect, but like you said, that's how it is most places. Right now he's being held in the keep, awaiting trial.

So, it is bribe time, the more people the priest can bride the better off he will be when meeting the judge. He will start with the jailer; who will provide him with a lawyer (100GP per CHR point). From here it is all about money, the lawyer will act as the go-between and will help bride people. I would create price sheet with chances of a brides. Example: witness for the priest: 1SP for every point of CHR of the witness. 10GP for documentation proof of good deeds.

The priest has a tidy sum of money hidden in his quarters that wasn't found by the watchmen who arrested him with which he can bribe people. I was thinking that he would offer this directly to the inquisitor, who could retrieve it under the pretense of collecting evidence, but you've given me an idea. The castellan, who is basically the priest's jailer, has a scribe who could be appointed to represent the priest, although I'm not sure how bribable I'd want either of them to be. There's also a lower level scribe that works in the outer-bailey. He's probably not above taking bribes.

 

[Hriston]

Character witnesses! Joe Peon the farmer, Mildrid the housewife. And don't forget the ever-lovable "stupidiity in numbers".
Remember that nobody but the one party member has seen the evil priest doing evil things (or maybe others have and are in on it), so since medieval court trials were rarely about evidence, the court would call on the local townfolk to testify on what they thought of the accused.

This is great because the evil priest is actually somewhat popular with the townsfolk or is at least well-known to them although he is an outsider. The only person in the town that actively dislikes him is the priest of Pelor because he never bought the evil priest's story about the obscure god he worships. There might be a high-ranking member of the watch that's already in cahoots with the evil priest as well. Their plans may include eventually taking out the castellan and taking over the castle themselves.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[epithet]

Another staple of the medieval witch trial was the ordeal.

A trial by ordeal might involve a series of constitution saving throws, with differing levels of success in the ordeal based on how many save successes there were. For example, holding a red hot iron bar for a period of time while clearly articulating the testimony in question (usually a protestation of one's innocence) might have a best outcome of 1 level of exhaustion and the loss of half of your hit points. A medium outcome might sill pass the ordeal, but with 2 levels of exhaustion, half hit point loss, and a "permanent" injury from the DMG that matches the ordeal in question. Failure of the ordeal might leave you at zero hit points and unconscious, with a permanent injury and 3 levels of exhaustion.

Make sure you have a plan for how to deal with the permanent injury on a PC - maybe the priest of Pelor has a minor relic that lets him cast greater resto once a year as a ritual, when the sun is at its zenith on a particular feast day of Pelor that will be coming up in a couple of weeks. Or, you can make the injury one the PC can live with and RP, like a maimed shield hand.

One possibility is that if the PC prevail in the legal challenge and the evil priest is convicted, before he is sentenced he can invoke the ancient law of trial by ordeal. He passes the ordeal with a permanent injury that becomes a distinguishing characteristic and drives him forward with a passion to exact a terrible vengeance on the PCs, the town, or both.

 

[steeldragons]

Something else to consider, if you are looking for a courtly...well, court/trial with the castellan serving as judge (wit ha cleric of Pelor offering counsel) and an actual "witchhunter" serving as prosecutor...what you are talking about for "proof" is certainly NOT what would be considered "proof" in a court today. "Circumstantial", at BEST. "Hearsay", in most cases. Rarely was there any kind of spellbook with demonic inscriptions found to say "Hey, lookie here! PROOF!"

Got a mole/blemish/random skin "growth"/BIRTHMARK, even, that's large/dark/bumpy enough somewhere [normally hidden by clothes, since you a were such an evil deceptive person, obviously it had to be "hidden/secret" from respectable folk] on your body? You're a WITCH!

Anything that is unusual/unique/strange material found in your possession/home/living quarters/places you were known to frequent...things as innocuous an especially fine goblet/chalice, writings in languages people don't recognize, basic household cooking and/or medicinal herbs...or maybe a hidden cache of gold coins...Where'd a simple farm woman amass a bag of riches like this?! Consorting with devils and wicked faeries/spirits that do their bidding, of course! Creatures that turn hay into gold for them or [better yet] steal from their neighbors for them! At BEST you're a thief...but you're obviously a thieving witch.

Speaking of neighbors...anyone in town they have a feud with? Give the stink eye to once? Any neighbors get sick? Their livestock get sick? Their crops fail? WIIIITCHHH!!!

Anyone in town you HELPED, by medicine/healing/"tending" or (since this is a D&D world) MAGICAL means?! You're a witch.

In a D&D world, I would expect any possession or association with known magical beings (like elves or gnomes, forget about tieflings or dragonborn!) would be "obvious evidence" of your consorting with the dark powers with which these wicked otherworldly beings obviously engage. Have a fine elvin made cloak? Witch. Why do you possess Gnome-made shoes? Witch.

Not to mention, this "cleric of a god noone's ever heard of" cover story....weak...sauce...That's going to fly in a trial as long as it takes the witchhunter to say the word "WITCH!" At BEST the lawful good castellan would defer to the cleric/church of Pelor to say whether or not their deity actually exists.

If the Peloran cleric is a just/fairminded/good person, maybe he will force a recess until he can contact his temple/archives/sages for confirmation of whether or not this proposed being is, in fact, a) real at all and b) a deity if it is real...and thus worthy of the basic deference -as representatives of the ACTUAL deities- required to all clerics (the cleric of pelor isn't going to want to rule that clerics can just summarily be assaulted and accused because of others' ignorance or a witchunter's say so)

And naturally ordeals/torture to the cleric and his acolytes until they break/confess or die.

But nothing presented at the trial needs be anything that would hold up in a courtroom today as "proof."

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Mistwell]

I think you will find good advice in Keith Baker's "Crime and Punishment" book, a d20 3e book he wrote through Penumbra Press some years ago. Of course, you might be able to peruse it in PDF format to see if you might be interested, from a place like bandoflovers?

 

[Mark CMG]

You might sprinkle in some language from the various Witchcraft Acts from history -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witchcraft_Acts

You should be able to search for them individually to get the text and snag some snippets -

https://scholar.vt.edu/access/content/user/tmcasey/Portfolio Resources/Witchcraft Act 1736.pdf

 

[TheFindus]

I get the feeling that running the trial itself will not be too engaging and fun for the players. No matter how intricate and historically accurate your framing of the court system will be, as witnesses the PCs will just be bystanders and the players will have to listen to the DM telling how the trial develops without engaging the situation directly. The background info on the court system is just color, really.

To me, D&D is more about PCs turning events around with their actions. And in this scenario, this will happen if they leave the courtroom. You have a evil symbol that is hidden somewhere. You may have allies who will try to find it too. You have a corrupt inquisitor that will not be convinced by everything the PCs wwill have to say, so they need convinving evidence and the people of the community on their side.

So you should rather conceptualize the backstory of the evil cult itself and leave the courtroom. Focus on the hidden symbol (where is it? are there guards?) and the allies of the evil priest (are there any left? who has seen them?). You can even focus on the inquisitor (how corrupt is he? are there witnesses?). This is stuff the players through their PCs can engage with. this is where the fun is IMO. Let the PCs be detectives, find the hidden evil temple, fight against the remains of the evil cult the priest belonged to (or whatever you had in mind with the evil priest). Then, when the PCs find out that the inquisitor is corrupt (how can they find out?), what do they do about it? What about the people of the community? Can they be turned against the priest they liked and the inquisitor, who is a figure of authority? This seems fun and engaging to me, much more so than a mere court trial, which makes a good movie but if the only role the PCs can play in it as it is right now is a pure witness, is running a high risk of being boring.
But if all you want to do is run a court trial, more power to you.

 

[Hriston]

I think you will find good advice in Keith Baker's "Crime and Punishment" book, a d20 3e book he wrote through Penumbra Press some years ago. Of course, you might be able to peruse it in PDF format to see if you might be interested, from a place like bandoflovers?

Thanks! This is extremely helpful, especially the part about running torture as a Medicine check versus a Constitution save. That's the kind of idea I was looking for in posting about this. I do want to clarify, however, that the "inquisitor" in my scenario is not like the magical inquisitor class in the book, but is rather a mundane lawyer type, probably with a charlatan background, inspired by the Witchfinder General, Matthew Hopkins, a witch-hunter of the 17th century. His methods included sleep deprivation, cutting the accused with blunt knives to prove they were a witch when they didn't bleed, the swimming test, and pricking the accused with special needles to find the Devil's mark.