The Laws of the Kingdom?

[Stoat]

As dasuul points out, you don't have to document the laws for "obvious and direct" crimes. Your real cultural flavor comes in:

• specific cultutral oddities (like the family crest thing EW mentions)
• severity of fine and punishments (death for everything)
• nature of legal resolution (court/trial system)

These are good points to keep in mind. Lovecraft didn't cook up an entire legal code for Ulthar. He just decided it it was illegal to kill cats there.

I think most of the time, it only takes one to three unique laws to give an area the right flavor. Any more risks overwhelming the PC's and diverting the DM's attention/resources. Even in a realm with a complicated, overly procedural legal system like the one ExploderWizard describes, I'd avoid trying to actually write the whole legal code. I'd come up with a half-dozen counterintuitive laws/legal procedures and let the players get the message from that.

 

[The Shaman]

The law is whatever me and my sword say it is, pilgrim.



And let me tell you what you can do with your codes . . .

 

[Starfox]

This reminds me of a passage from Njarl's Saga (Icelandic). Njarl is a lawspeaker and is covertly advising one party in a legal dispute. Njarl's friends make an appeal at the allting based on an obscure law Njarl dug out of his memory. The legal advice for the opposition admits that this law exists, but say "I believed only I and Njarl knew of this". The law existed, but it was a secret!

You don't need to present the law to your players. Laws need not be written down. Doing so was actually a major reform that made laws much more accessible; earlier it had been recorded in the memories of certain noblemen.

 

[Vartan]

I mostly make it up as I go along. My current campaign is thematically geared to examine the nature of law, government and authority. Every session that the PCs are within the boundaries of the Kingdom I try to open the session by reciting a bit of information about a peculiar law. I told them about this particular law two sessions before they discovered that their mentor's grave had been violated and his remains crucified by a rogue nobleman from eastern Arlius.

The Queen’s Act Regarding Capital Punishment of Criminals (known in parts of Arlius as "The Hangman’s Relief Act")

Only agents of Her Majesty, Queen Isenna or the Council of Lords may execute a criminal. They may only do so by two methods: public hanging (administered by a licensed Hangman) or private beheading (administered by one of noble birth trained in the art of swordsmanship). In the case of a beheading the criminal’s head must be displayed in public to prove that the execution was completed.

Unless it is sanctioned by Her Majesty, performing a torturous form of execution is a crime punishable by death. The definition of “a torturous form of execution” is a matter of debate amongst scholars, but the text of the Act offers drawing and quartering, burning alive and crucifixion as examples.

The Act itself was originally intended to eliminate the practice of crucifixion: such punishment was a longstanding tradition in eastern Arlius, but Her Majesty thought the act to be barbaric. Upon her ascension to the throne Queen Isenna--still a minor acting under the regency of the bard Bradefele--demanded that the practice be outlawed. Bradefele, as he often did, seized upon this opportunity to consolidate the Council's power by institutionalizing noblemen as the sole legal source of capital punishment.

Violation of the Act is punishable by a life sentence of hard labor.

One consequence of the Act was to create a new class of licensed craftsmen (the Hangman). Another (unforeseen) consequence of the Act was to drastically reduce the fortunes of several carpenters in eastern Arlius.
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[Starfox]

One consequence of the Act was to create a new class of licensed craftsmen (the Hangman). Another (unforeseen) consequence of the Act was to drastically reduce the fortunes of several carpenters in eastern Arlius.
[/INDENT]

Wow, takes quite a few crucifixions to affect the local economy!