White Willows pt8

The Law in White Willows

Most of the laws in White Willows concern themselves with civil, property, or personal matters. Laws in the canton are made and changed by one person alone, the Lord Viscount. Lord Viscount Alba is a stickler for the law, and relies on the old cannon books as his sole source of legal influence. This said he went out of his way to purge many of the cantons 'old odd laws' and loopholes were purged early in his reign.

Law in White Willows is surprisingly lax compared to most other Patchwork Kingdoms. Most punishments are met with fines and lashes, more serious crimes with slavery, and the worst with execution. Inside the city of White Willows people who are caught breaking the law are tried at one of the various courts depending on their standing or the victims standing and outside of the city of White Willows there is no set court, instead the villages and hamlets are served by Traveling Judges.

Traveling Judges

Most Traveling Judges move by wagon, or in places they cannot reach, horseback. They travel, along with a chest containing copies of canton law, with a pack of body guards/executioners. Most Traveling Judges move by night so they can come to villages unannounced allowing getting the drop on criminals who might move on if they know of their approach. The Traveling Judges answer only to the Lord Viscount and have full authority to do what is necessary under the law. Traveling Judges are selected from only the most unbreakable of stock as the work is hard, dangerous, and often targeted for corruption.

Punishment

White Willows lacks a prison. While there is a jail it is intended for temporary stays, drunks who need to sober up or the accused awaiting trial. Most of the punishments laid out by the courts are fines, slave time, or execution with fines and slave time being the most common. For most minor crimes judges seek mediation between the parties before an actual trial. Fines are the most common punishment for the wealthy and well connected while slave time is reserved for the poor.

Laws Every Adventure Should Know

Casters who can cast first level or grater spells must get registered with the government, including a test for Boggie Pox

Spells above Second level, if cast in public, incur a fine of 100gp*Spell Level.

Casters are responsible for any damages their spells (including summons) might do to property.

Flight by non-avian creatures is banned; anyone flying is liable to be shot.

Magical Weapons require a 100gp license to wield or are open to confiscation.

There is a 50gp fine for discharging a firearm, except in self-defense, after sundown.

If you Polymorph someone you must deliver affected to their next of kin or tag them with a note and deliver to the nearest guard or militia member.

Charm, Sleep, and other ‘mind-altering’ spell, effect, or potion may only be cast in self-defense. There is a 10gp fine for every minuet someone is affected unjustly.

All potions and scrolls must be checked by the city guards when entering the city.

Necromancy is illegal unless approved by the Lord Viscount on an individual by individual basis.

Public drunkenness incurs a fine of 1gp and a night in the drunk tank at the City Jail (or militial guard post).

Slavery in White Willows

Slavery plays and important part of society in White Willows. Primarily used for manual labor, particularly farming, civil projects, and manning the many water pumping stations across the canton, slaves can also be found in skilled positions, as artisans, scholars, physicians and cooks. White Willows differs from many other societies in that many of its slaves are time based and when their period of service has conclude they become free men again. Slavery in the canton is not race bound and Slavery can be separated into two categories, debt slaves and unfree labor.

Debt bondage, or debt slaves, are bound to a debt and preform labor to pay off said debt. The rules and laws surrounding this kind of slavery vary but most debt slaves retain their personal property, receive a small stipend from their ‘employer,’ and are free to move about. Debt slavery is only temporary and lasts until the debt slave can pay off their debt. Depending on the skills and the person who owns the debt this may take days or years. Debt slaves are rarely forced to wear chain, but if they run away they become criminal and they risk their family also becoming slaves. Often, in times of great hardship, parents will sell their children into debt slavery.

Unfree laborers, or criminal slaves, are slaves bound to serve a sentence of time as punishment for a crime. Many are owned by the state and are used for public works programs, hard labor (like manning the water pumping stations), or dangerous or dirty jobs (like the involuntary fire department or the mushroom plantations). The state often ‘rents’ out the best behaving of the criminal slaves to private businesses. Criminal slaves always wear chains on their ankles are generally kept out of sight of most people. Criminal slaves are often marked with tattoos on their foreheads or neck to signify their status as a slave.

Under canton law slaves are considered property and lack a legal personhood. Slaves have a few rights, they must be fed, housed, and clothed by their masters and it is illegal to perform any sort of punishment against a slave that is ‘unnecessarily cruel or disfiguring.’ Beyond this slaves have no rights except those granted to them by their masters however debt slaves are treated much, much better than criminal slaves, and while they can expect some abuse and humiliation are free from most corporal punishment.

There is a currently undercurrent of public option against slavery in the canton. The whole practice of slavery is seen as a backwards and savage institution, a relic of a bygone era where the Invincible Overlords would take thousands of slaves as tribute from the defeated. A few high profile incidences regarding the cruelty of some slavers in the canton (The Wheel of Pain, The Death of a Man Called ‘Bear,’ the Corpse of Jane Doe) have turned the population against the institution and the Slavers Guild has been in damage control for the past decade trying to reform its image.

One of the strangest phenomena of White Willows system of slavery is its taxation system. On New Year’s Day all slave masters must pay a tax of 10gp per slave. To circumvent this many let their slaves ‘escape’ for the day then ‘recapture’ them the day after. While most slaves comply with this unwritten rule of escape/capture (as it is essentially a holiday for them) many attempt to escape from their masters fully on this day.

Magic in White Willows

Magic is seen as strange and dangerous in White Willows as it is most everywhere. Casters are distrusted by the peoples at large. It is rare to find a wizard put to the torch but often any unexplained problem is attributed to the closest caster. Casting spells in the open will not get you lynched (unless of course there is an errant Fireball) but may get you exiled. All casters who can cast first level or better spells are required to get registered with the government.

Alchemy and herbalism is more widespread and respected than magic. When the casters left during the Boggie Pox something had to fill in. While much of it was snake oil, alchemists and herbalists became the default solution to illness and other problems. Still alchemy relatively unregulated so unless the alchemist is well known or trusted they are often seen as a crap shoot by most.