[Scarred Lands] Hollowfaust: Final Forfeiture Query
- Thread starter Harlock
- Start date
Oni
First Post
Graf said:
I think your hitting a real grey territory here. Final Forfeiture isn't a sentence that is handed out lightly, it is a punishment for only the highest crimes. While the necromancer would certainly be within his rights to keep the person alive for experimentation, what your talking about may be a breach of this. Remember the person only gives up the right to the body, not their freewill. Also consider that while Hollowfaust is lawful in the extreme, those laws are mutable as the Council can step in and alter things as they wish. A person walking away from a final forfeiture sentence I think could very likely be considered a grave threat to the security of the city of Hollowfaust, and the Council's decisions hold the security of the city above the exact letter of the law (which is all well and good for them since for all practicle purposes they are the law). Having a person who received final forfeiture up and walking about Hollowfuast would be a huge blow to the authority of the Council and the Guilds, I'm not sure they would let it stand.
Anyway, just some food for thought.
Graf
Explorer
In progressive societies civil rights (which are the legal equivalent to the freewill you're talking about) are pre-emenent. I think that focus on individuals rights is probably epidomized by CG societies like Vesh (or the U.S. in the real world).Oni said:
As you pointed out HF is Lawful. I don't see civil rights as an issue. I think that collective rights and the people of importance within the heirarchy are a priority.
I don't see the majority of final forfeiture sentences as being security related. You can do lots of stuff and get cacked without having been there to steal Baryoi's private diary.Oni said:
Oni said:
I think of HF and I think secretive police state. They don't hold open courts, they don't announce who's been arrested or why and they certainly don't tell people what they're doing with the victim now.
(Imagine it: Well ma'am, your hustband was put in the golem made out of human remains they sent out on patrol into the Hornsaw last week. Oh, except the eyes. Says here his eyes went to the 3rd circle advanced semenar on scrying. Hmm. Probably used as materials for some spell. Was there anything else I could help you with?).
Nope.
Not sharing that info with the public.
The necromancers rule they city as a bunch of efficent-bordering-on-amoral autocrats. They aren't a political party they're a group of uber-men (for lack of a better term) who can kill with a word and a guesture. Their word is law in Hollowfaust and occasionally bending or breaking a rule they made up isn't going to affect their authority one whit.
I guess the difference in points of view is that I see even the more enlightened places in SL as still (out of necessity) extremely 'backward', i.e. totalitarian.
Last edited:
Barastrondo
First Post
Fascinating idea…
I see this as having several potential interpretations and possible side effects.
One: A necromancer can likely temporarily remove his or her name from the lottery pool, replacing it only when their researches are at a stage when they could genuinely use a nice, fresh body or a living subject. I would actually assume that there would be some social peer pressure for necromancers who don't need a lottery win to bow out, levied by those necromancers who would really like to receive another subject. This would be a neat way to introduce another level of, if not intrigue, at least interesting social dealings in the Underfaust. ("Gentlemen, I just received a shipment of fine wines from Vesh, and there's a bottle in it for anyone who's willing to withdraw from the lottery for three months' time. Who will drink with me tonight?")
Two: Keeping a vivisection subject alive indefinitely is the sort of thing that would probably draw some sort of social stigma — after all, you're not really studying the subject dying, are you? Not to say that it couldn't happen, but this is the sort of thing that would probably "feel right" if you were establishing the necromancer in question as particularly cruel and vicious, or if there was some personal grudge at stake (for instance, if the sentenced criminal had raped and murdered someone that the necromancer knew personally). The necromancer who went to extra lengths to prolong his target's suffering (keeping the vital spirit in the body, mind) might be the subject of unwholesome rumors at the commissary. ("Did you hear? Khaudra's test subject is still alive and kicking. I wonder if she wouldn't have been happier back when the Society of Immortals was still around...") More might come of it (after all, Hollowfaust isn't a good place, but there are more good-aligned people on the Sovereign Council than evil), or not. Depending on how you wanted to play the politics.
Three: I'm pretty much with Oni on the morale issue. Final Forfeiture is meant to be a death sentence, and as such, tends to be levied on people who are presumably better off dead than alive, at least as far as the community is concerned. This includes people that the common folk would want to see dead as well as those that are deemed too dangerous by the Council. There might be an interesting problem with public morale if it got out that certain condemned criminals were not in fact dead as the public had hoped they'd be.
(Unlike Graf, I happen to believe that people who have commited crimes agaisnt the citzenry would not receive public trials, but would receive public sentencing. Floggings would probably be public if the criminal had injured some popular member of the populace, and the proclamation that a murderer or rapist has received final forfeiture would probably be posted publicly simply because it would (in theory) make the public feel safer. People like to know that criminals are being punished (or in the case of the civil rights activist, that the criminal is being "treated" or "rehabilitated"); they want to be told that a particularly violent criminal will not be committing any more murders, mutilations or rapes. And in a society that D&D implies — where it's socially okay to solve problems with swords and fireballs — the average citizen is probably more in favor of capital punishment than the modern person is, or else they'd be stoning adventurers out of town for their lax attitude toward "frontier justice." Of course, none of this is actually in the book, so it's just my opinion, nothing official, of course...)
A really neat set of scenarios just suggests itself, though. Great thinking. Hope you have fun with whatever it is you're planning for your poor heroes, Harlock!
[Random Necromantic Note: The Chinese saga "Journey to the West" includes a description of a "Face-Preserving Pearl," a magical pearl placed under the tongue of a corpse to preserve it from decomposition until removed. It's used in the book to preserve a drowned official until he can be resurrected. How's that for literary precedent?]
I see this as having several potential interpretations and possible side effects.
One: A necromancer can likely temporarily remove his or her name from the lottery pool, replacing it only when their researches are at a stage when they could genuinely use a nice, fresh body or a living subject. I would actually assume that there would be some social peer pressure for necromancers who don't need a lottery win to bow out, levied by those necromancers who would really like to receive another subject. This would be a neat way to introduce another level of, if not intrigue, at least interesting social dealings in the Underfaust. ("Gentlemen, I just received a shipment of fine wines from Vesh, and there's a bottle in it for anyone who's willing to withdraw from the lottery for three months' time. Who will drink with me tonight?")
Two: Keeping a vivisection subject alive indefinitely is the sort of thing that would probably draw some sort of social stigma — after all, you're not really studying the subject dying, are you? Not to say that it couldn't happen, but this is the sort of thing that would probably "feel right" if you were establishing the necromancer in question as particularly cruel and vicious, or if there was some personal grudge at stake (for instance, if the sentenced criminal had raped and murdered someone that the necromancer knew personally). The necromancer who went to extra lengths to prolong his target's suffering (keeping the vital spirit in the body, mind) might be the subject of unwholesome rumors at the commissary. ("Did you hear? Khaudra's test subject is still alive and kicking. I wonder if she wouldn't have been happier back when the Society of Immortals was still around...") More might come of it (after all, Hollowfaust isn't a good place, but there are more good-aligned people on the Sovereign Council than evil), or not. Depending on how you wanted to play the politics.
Three: I'm pretty much with Oni on the morale issue. Final Forfeiture is meant to be a death sentence, and as such, tends to be levied on people who are presumably better off dead than alive, at least as far as the community is concerned. This includes people that the common folk would want to see dead as well as those that are deemed too dangerous by the Council. There might be an interesting problem with public morale if it got out that certain condemned criminals were not in fact dead as the public had hoped they'd be.
(Unlike Graf, I happen to believe that people who have commited crimes agaisnt the citzenry would not receive public trials, but would receive public sentencing. Floggings would probably be public if the criminal had injured some popular member of the populace, and the proclamation that a murderer or rapist has received final forfeiture would probably be posted publicly simply because it would (in theory) make the public feel safer. People like to know that criminals are being punished (or in the case of the civil rights activist, that the criminal is being "treated" or "rehabilitated"); they want to be told that a particularly violent criminal will not be committing any more murders, mutilations or rapes. And in a society that D&D implies — where it's socially okay to solve problems with swords and fireballs — the average citizen is probably more in favor of capital punishment than the modern person is, or else they'd be stoning adventurers out of town for their lax attitude toward "frontier justice." Of course, none of this is actually in the book, so it's just my opinion, nothing official, of course...)
A really neat set of scenarios just suggests itself, though. Great thinking. Hope you have fun with whatever it is you're planning for your poor heroes, Harlock!
[Random Necromantic Note: The Chinese saga "Journey to the West" includes a description of a "Face-Preserving Pearl," a magical pearl placed under the tongue of a corpse to preserve it from decomposition until removed. It's used in the book to preserve a drowned official until he can be resurrected. How's that for literary precedent?]
Graf
Explorer
Writer participation. Whee!
In any organization there are probably people who work very assidioiusly to master the system and use it to there advantage. So that less academically gifted necromancers could advance their station by maintaining a stable of journymen they could arrage to collaborate on a project, i.e. supply materials.
That might be the genisis of a particularly interesting anatomist guild character.
Then there's just the old fashioned hiring-someone-to-adjust-the-rolls-and-change-the-order-of-the-corpses. (Might be a fun solo adventure for a rogue character....). Invisibility to undead to avoid the guards,etc.
Perhaps a high gorgon perished within the city, without the authorities noticing its true nature. Now a certain-someone within HF very badly wants that corpse before a proper autopsy raises some questions about what preciesely they were doing.
Anyway the unintended consiquences of the no trading rule could wind up producing some very counter-intuitive results.
(Though thats partially the free market capitalist in me, these kinds of systems rarely acheive the goals they are intended to when they are actually implimented.)
(Basically the Necromancers-aren't-cruel thinking above).
Of course if the bailiff never identified the a connection and it weren't widely know it might be possible.
Then you could have a necromancer who's fallen in love with a dead spirit and tries to procure the body of a young woman so that the object of his obsession might return to life.
I tend to agree that people are fine with capital punishment. When you got pretty solid evidence that people will be going to on outer plane based on their choices in life, when you can measure the degree of somone's evil-ness in a binary way and so on I think a lof of common folk's objections to death would tend to melt away.
While it may not be legal to trade a body the winner of a particularly coveted corpse might be invited to "colaborate" in someone's research.Barastrondo said:
In any organization there are probably people who work very assidioiusly to master the system and use it to there advantage. So that less academically gifted necromancers could advance their station by maintaining a stable of journymen they could arrage to collaborate on a project, i.e. supply materials.
That might be the genisis of a particularly interesting anatomist guild character.
Then there's just the old fashioned hiring-someone-to-adjust-the-rolls-and-change-the-order-of-the-corpses. (Might be a fun solo adventure for a rogue character....). Invisibility to undead to avoid the guards,etc.
Perhaps a high gorgon perished within the city, without the authorities noticing its true nature. Now a certain-someone within HF very badly wants that corpse before a proper autopsy raises some questions about what preciesely they were doing.
Anyway the unintended consiquences of the no trading rule could wind up producing some very counter-intuitive results.
(Though thats partially the free market capitalist in me, these kinds of systems rarely acheive the goals they are intended to when they are actually implimented.)
I had actually assumed that a necromancer wouldn't be allowed to get anyone like this. If someone killed a retainer that retainers necromancer and associates would not be allowed to get the corpse.Barastrondo said:
(Basically the Necromancers-aren't-cruel thinking above).
Of course if the bailiff never identified the a connection and it weren't widely know it might be possible.
I like the politics having an impact, a junior member might be censured while a major researcher with an impressive petegrie (sp) might be beyond reproach.Barastrondo said:
Then you could have a necromancer who's fallen in love with a dead spirit and tries to procure the body of a young woman so that the object of his obsession might return to life.
I tend to agree that people are fine with capital punishment. When you got pretty solid evidence that people will be going to on outer plane based on their choices in life, when you can measure the degree of somone's evil-ness in a binary way and so on I think a lof of common folk's objections to death would tend to melt away.
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