Crime and Justice

Justice in Seln is local. Most settlements appoint a sheriff and a variable number of reeves. Common tradition is that the sheriff is appointed by consensus of the local clan representatives and serves until told otherwise. Each sheriff is independent, and his authority stretches as far as he can travel.

Sheriff is a full-time position, paid for by settlement funds. The reeves are typically unpaid and work part-time. For example, a bar might pay a reeve with free bear to hang out at the tavern during a tourist season and smack any youth that starts a fight upside the head.

Traveling caravans and Royal Inspectors will deliver scrolls with information on known criminals in the area. This information travels slow, and petty criminals can usually stay ahead of the news. For particularly violent or dangerous criminals, messengers can be dispatched to quickly send word.

Punishments

  • Public disorder and drunkenness – Damages for anything broken plus a fee to the magistrate. “One week’s pay” is a common metric
  • Theft – Return of lost items plus two fees: one to the afflicted and one to the magistrate. “One month’s pay to each” is a common metric
  • Assault – Banishment from the settlement or a period of hard labor
    • In Alora, “assault” requires an attempt to permanently injure. Bar fights, fist fights, and contests of strength are considered public disorder
  • Grace dishonor – Banishment
    • Covers fraud, embezzlement, indecency, etc.
  • Murder – execution

Since many of these punishments involve fees based on your wages, repeat offenders tend to avoid obvious sources of income. In turn, annoyed sheriffs often substitute forced labor for pay.

Seln has only a few prisons, and these facilities are focused on imprisoning dangerous cultivators. If you wish to see a villain imprisoned for his crimes, you will likely have to transport him across the Kingdom yourself!

On Murder

Here we find the subtle influence of Harmony. Though fights are quite common, murder is not. You encounter a resistance to the thought of snuffing out another life that naturally restrains your hand in all but the most dire circumstances.

This may be a sharp divergence from other stories you have played in. In Seln Alora, battles are fought to victory or retreat instead of death in most cases.

Fighting injustices

When you encounter a corrupt magistrate or sheriff, what are you to do?

Fight for yourself! Gather the clan representatives and make a case; or run the corrupt official out of town; or track down a Royal Inspector to enforce the Crown’s authority!

Encounter bandits on the road? A show of force may dissuade them!

In remote locales where no meaningful Kingdom authority exists, you may turn to Spirits, Shades, or Kingdom neighbors for alliance.

As cultivators, you are the first line of defense for honor and Harmony in the Kingdom. Wear the burden with pride!

Spies and intrigue

Can’t throw a stick without hitting some pretend ninja in Seln Alora!

You never know when an iterant monk or traveling scholar is more than he seems. Royal Inspectors travel in plain clothes; spies for clans and syndicates sniff for opportunity; and criminals lurk in the shadows.

Civilian disguises are popular; figures of Kingdom authority are not. Why? The penalty for impersonating an agent of the Crown is death! The Crown seems to learn of such impersonations with shocking accuracy even in remote locations, and a few wise spies whisper that Queen Astra has some secret Art to hear any time someone claims to act in her name.

Typically, such spies will seek for:

  • Clan seals used for documents
  • Clan communications
  • Financial documents
  • Histories, lore, and maps for places of power
  • Scrolls of secret Arts
  • Money!

War and conflict

You have never known true war; the Kingdom has not mobilized its entire strength since the first days of the Grand Fae. The Kingdom has no standing army.

Instead, authorities gather troupes of cultivated warriors to attack or defend against individual threats. When the centauri muster a raiding party or the Skyshadow Eagles send forth ghosts of destruction, it is troupes of Path warriors that rise to meet the threat.

You are the Kingdom’s defender! Feel honored.

A Troupe might be composed of:

  • Militia – Formally enrolled civilians, gathered in response to crisis
    • The most common militia is the fire brigade, always important in a Kingdom full of wooden construction!
  • Sheriff and reeves
  • Clan irregulars
    • Basically gangs, usually as dangerous to the people they are ostensibly defending

A few Troupes bear special mention.

Royal inspectors

All Royal Inspectors are cultivators. They must be, since a royal inspector must operate on the dangerous road against all manner of threat. Many will gather a Troupe of junior cultivators. After all, the wise man realizes that royal edicts are mere word on the paper when the corrupt magistrate’s men outnumber you ten to one!

Inspectors often display strange and unexpected Arts. The inspector and those who journey in his Troupe are surprisingly difficult to drug, bribe, or mentally manipulate. You have even heard that some inspectors know how to fake their own deaths by stopping their own hearts!

The King’s Chosen

The King’s Chosen are Path veterans, hand-picked by the Crown. Each veteran forswears their lineage, their clan, and their possessions; in turn, the Crown imparts to these veterans powerful Arts and membership in an exclusive brotherhood. Bound by a strict code of honor, the King’s Chosen act as the Crown’s cavalry.

The King’s Chosen act as the Crown’s cavalry, traveling the land at Whistler speeds. When their horns sound, villains scatter to the darkest shadows!

This force boasts another terrifying capacity: they have the artifacts and the power to travel beyond the outer wards in pursuit of their quarry.

The King

King Senbonzakura no Yamamoto Riku prefers deeds over words, and his deeds match his office. Known as the strongest man in all Seln, he travels the isle enforcing the will of the Crown and pursuing all enemies of the folk.

The King Riku of old fought – and won! – against a Grand Fae upon the field of battle. No one is quite sure how he managed to break the Fae’s Realm, but one phrase repeats itself across conflicting tales:

The Dragon’s Breath