rights and races (who is protected?)

[Wombat]

I have read a number of legal codes from the 500s and 600s AD where different rights, duties, obligations, and priveleges are granted to different "races" of people -- for example the Lombards differentiated between Lombards, Gauls, Goths, and Romans (Romans recieving the most privileges, Gauls the least). There is definitely historical precedence for giving different levels of rights to seperate communities and given the wildness of D&D (how many sentient races that look wildly different?) it is easily imaginable that such documents could occur.

Examples from the Lombard code (not direct quote, just from memory):

* A Roman's testimony counts higher than a Gaul's in a court of law

* Only Romans and Lombards could actually own property

* A Roman could not be enslaved

* Lombards were allowed freer access to weaponry

I'll have to go home tonight and find some specific quotes

 

[s/LaSH]

And yet, much more recently, monkeys and horses have been tried in court. (The monkey for being a Spanish spy, the horse for murder. Unsurprisingly, I think they were both found guilty.)

It depends on region, really. Some regions will be sensible, semi-enlightened, and have just enough knowledge to start formulating theories of racial superiority (with themselves at the top, naturally). Some regions will trade with anything that can produce goods, reasoning that if they're not trying to bite your face off you might as well make a buck.

Of course, if something out there is hunting children for sport, you either send for the guard or form a mob, no matter your official documentation. I think that's a fairly universal rule. Then again, if you're living in a stratified society, and it turns out an elf noble has been hunting orc babies in the slums, you're probably going to see changes in the status quo...

Anything that can't talk, historically, has had a very bad time of it. This extends to newly-discovered cultures, of course, but animals and plants are the biggest victims. There's only one historical case of actually really respecting the wilds that I can think of, and that's the druidic practice of having certain sacred trees. Note, that's not all trees, just certain big important ones. I don't think any pseudoeuropean society would have any ecologists predicting doom and gloom.

I think my 'world' (altered medieval Europe) tends towards the less-structured end of this spectrum, simply because 'people' has so many categories. If you see someone with a dog's head, he's probably a foreign emissary. If you see someone with tusks, they're probably a merchant. Of course, if you see a short, greenish humanoid, you kill it because that's a goblin and there are zero recorded cases in the known world of goblins wanting to do anything other than maim, slaughter and kill you. And if a family of orcs moves in down the road, you give them a hard time, but that's just the same as you'd get a hard time if you moved into Ho Chi Minh city. (Please note broad generalisation; this would apply to just about anyone going just about anywhere, I just picked that city as a place most - not all - ENWorlders wouldn't exactly fit in.)