Zone of Sanctuary

[kyrt-ryder]

This is a re-post from elsewhere on the forum, but it has yet to be responded to (being buried under 140+posts in the given thread probably doesn't help) and I felt it was worth bringing up for discussion.

Something interesting I thought of. In Pathfinder there is at least one spell that prevents conflict (barring a saving throw of course.) And that is Sanctuary.

Now what I'm thinking, is what if the core of the NPC cities (and PC created cities willing to spend the resources necessary to maintain such a constructed spell) is protected by an area version, wherein people within it's boundaries literally can not attack one another.

When war is declared through the appropriate divine rituals, divine forces tear down this barrier to those nations on opposing sides (the declarers and those against whom declarations of war are made.) Outside of divinely sanctioned war, however, these city centers would be completely spelled against combat.

Thus, non-combat types would have a choice. Set up shop in the central part of town under the protective spell, or set up shop further out to the edges of town in the seedier areas, where it's easier to deal business with the bad people trying to skirt around the law, but where they could also fall victim to bad people.

As a final note, I could totally see such a constructed spell being powered by the surrounding populace (the more life energy available the stronger and larger it gets.) Thus as cities continued to expand, so too would the 'Zone of Sanctuary.'

Thoughts?

[Tiny Coffee Golem]

not a bad idea . every major city would want one.

[Tiny Coffee Golem]

Imagine NYC with one of these. ;-)

[kyrt-ryder]

Competition for shop space within the safety net could get pretty fierce ;)

[Dyraele]

I like the idea but I would also like the idea of being able to break down the barrier outside of war. The key would be that the spell to break it would have to be a multi-level spell requiring different enchantations by the highest level mage and, on top of that, requiring multiple mages to combine forces to bring it down. Once done, their power is zapped for a long period of time and the spell cannot be performed again for days or months. Maybe the spell requires a component that you can only carry one of at a time for some reason and is very hard to obtain.

[kyrt-ryder]

I could potentially see something like that working Dyraele. Sending in some assassin types to sew the seeds of chaos once the safety net comes down, taking out important leaders and such. It would make for a hell of a story, but it would need to be so difficult it's not worth doing for the evulz no matter how much someone might want to.

(Also months would be too long, but weeks, up to one month, might be appropriate.)

[Onishi]

kyrt-ryder wrote:

Competition for shop space within the safety net could get pretty fierce ;)

I doubt that, I find it highly unlikely that killing someone who is running a shop, will actually be a plausible idea. Not necessarily impossible, but with a 99.99% chance of ending badly for the attacker.

[kyrt-ryder]

While I agree with you Onishi, a glance around this forum shows that many do not. And honestly, even though I wouldn't worry too much about it myself, as a smithing character creating valuable equipment used by powerful warriors... I would much rather have that safety net than not :P