In the process of creating a new nation in the game world I'm running, I've had to put some thoughts to the laws and punishments of the land. For murder, all possessions acquired, distributed to next of kin of victim/s and death by crucifixion.
But wait, a player character was murdered. They caught the murderer and instead of killing them, they gave the murderers to the authorities and had their companion raised.
Well, he was killed, so that goes under that law, but he was raised, so that makes a little quirk for the law doesn't it?
So how do you think the ability to resurrect someone would effect the laws of the land in general, let alone other magic abilities that would change normal circumstances for consequences of actions and punishments for them?
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An analogy would be stealing and stolen property.
If someone steals something and they are caught, usually the stolen property is returned to the rightful owner. The thief is still prosecuted though.
A raised victim would also make a pretty compelling witness.
I'd expect magical investigation and testimony gained by zone of truth would be standard process if the world was around Golarion level magic rich.
Are you sure ? If magical investigation, detect magic, scrying etc. are standard .. protection against this kind of anti crime should be standard too. :)
if he was raised, it should be open to anyone willing to raise the "murderer" from the dead after his execution.
If he hasn't got as good friends, or as rich friends as the player character, well too bad.
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While an argument could be made for reduced severity (such as attempted murder vs. successful murder), the mere fact that the damage done was repaired doesn't change the crime in itself.
Looking at real-world examples, if I was to beat someone to hospitalization and the person makes a full recovery - its still a crime. I am not only obligated to pay for the hospital bills and lost income, I get taken to task for the act itself.
Because it's, i don't know, maybe corrosive to a civilized society? ;)
I think either way has the potential to make a mockery of the law.
Let the murderer off the hook or with I lighter sentence and anyone can commit heinous crimes, so long as the victim’s family is rich enough to have the spell cast.
Charge the murderer under the full force of the law and it creates a contradiction were the by definition “dead” person is not in fact dead. Then there’s the double standard between semi-immortal rich folks and everyone else.
Of course there is also the easy way out. It can be that the authorities just don’t believe the PC’s. All they have is the PC’s word and how could he have been killed when he’s clearly still walking around?
The ability to keep people dead it the trade of the Red Mantises and it's why they do so well for themselves.
Also, If I were going to murder someone in magic world I'd at least get rid of (ie burn) the body to make the raiseing harder.
if I had the magic to do so I'd trap the soul to keep them dead. Or not kill them and just hide their body in stasisi somewhere.
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The ability to keep people dead it the trade of the Red Mantises and it's why they do so well for themselves.
Also, If I were going to murder someone in magic world I'd at least get rid of (ie burn) the body to make the raiseing harder.
if I had the magic to do so I'd trap the soul to keep them dead. Or not kill them and just hide their body in stasisi somewhere.
The question of murder in a world where resurrection exists is covered pretty thoroughly in Steven Brust's Dragaeran series (Taltos, Jhereg, et. al.)
Basically, standard killing is considered a warning. You kill a guy to show that you can get to him, so when he gets rezzed, he knows he has stepped on the wrong toes. Killing someone so they stay dead requires destroying their head or hiding their body long enough that the soul departs the plane. And then there's "Morganti", a class of soul-eating weapon that delivers a complete, unalterable death that bypasses the afterlife entirely. Morganti is not used lightly, not even by the most vicious of people.
I think for murder we will go for confiscation of all assets to be applied towards resurrection and lost income. Any left over goes to the state (to prevent pinning murders on rich folks to get all their stuff). The murderer is put to death. If there are not enough funds to perform a resurrection, including that of the deceased and or their survivors, then none is performed.
Thus leading to life insurance with resurrection clauses, but then I already have that in a neighboring empire.
Note of course that many people might not want to come back, and are happy where ever they ended up. One of the reasons why many of the families of victims would not wish a resurrection to be performed.
Actually, the Jhereg novels cover the GAMUT of magical crime issues; House Jhereg is the organized crime syndicate of the Dragaeran Empire, and the 'Left Hand' of the Jhereg specializes in magical crime, or using magic to aid mundane criminality.
...and don't forget, spectrevk, even a "standard" killing would be thoroughly investigated by the Empire, regardless of whether the victim were revivified or not.
But do check into the Jhereg novels if you want some ideas, knightstar4; the 'actual' laws are buried in storytelling, but they're GREAT stories.
Are you sure ? If magical investigation, detect magic, scrying etc. are standard .. protection against this kind of anti crime should be standard too. :)I'd expect magical investigation and testimony gained by zone of truth would be standard process if the world was around Golarion level magic rich.
A good point to bring up. This assume that magic has a counter spell possible. This is not always the case. Unfortunately in way the rules help structure the world there are spells that do indeed act as a counter to Zone of Truth.
Protection from ALIGNMENT and Magic Circle against ALIGNMENT. Now the down side to these is that generally speaking these will be Chaotic or Evil spells and will show in a detection spell. The way to counter that is to build them into an item that with Magic Aura on it... but now we are starting to see a not insignificant investment in resources.
The counter to such an item(s) would be a tradition of wearing the ceremonial court toga (more like loin cloth), where all participants strip and don said toga/loin-cloth plus remove all jewelry. "All are bare before the eyes of the gods." Now we're getting silly. ;P
A Zone of Truth is not fool proof as people can resist it's effects (make their save) or try to dodge questions, so a skilled interrogator would still need to "Sense" their motive as well.
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This reminds me of a scene I once saw in a crime drama. Two detectives were having a thought experiment. One posits that he tries to murder a man by sneaking into his house when he's sleeping. Only when he delivers the deathblow, the victim doesn't react. Turns out he died in his sleep before the murderer even got there. So then, is the "murderer" guilty of anything?
The answer is yes-- attempted murder. Trying to kill someone is a crime, regardless of whether or not you actually succeed. Granted, in that example the killer failed because his victim was already dead, and in this one he failed because the victim continued to live after the fact, but that doesn't change the fact that a murder was attempted.
Attempted murder rarely gets the death penalty, even in jurisdictions where successful murder would. But usually the jail time is long enough that you don't really get to do much else with your life.
My biggest question is how invisibility affects the law. I see you become invisible, and then a guy over there falls over dead, or starts yelling that his coinpouch is gone, or whatever. It's pretty obvious what happened, but even though I witnessed the crime, I can't prove it was you. Does invisibility just completely spit on the concept of "reasonable doubt"? If I walk into a jewelry store and cast invisibility, is that right there proof of malicious intent?
This reminds me of...
TANGENT alert. My apologies.
Hey, buddy. I looked up your name on FB but we have no mutual friends, so I couldn't tell which account with your name was you (the profile pics that popped were no help). I'm Rone Barton on FB. Let's try that. Great meeting you this weekend.
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If an assassin or executioner in a world full of ressurection spells wants to keep someone dead, soul trapping magic or whatnot is the ridiculously expensive solution, compared to placing a tiny dab of green slime on the corpse and having it utterly devoured over the next several rounds.
And, if not green slime, for some specific reason, there's other options, like russet mold, that do the same thing. For legitimate executions, fire and acid work fine, and are safer to keep around than a tub of green slime.
Chopping up the victim and stuffing them into a storage device (handy haversack), or casting shrink item on the body and taking it away and feeding it to a bunch of feral hogs or something also works, at a much reduced cost over disintegrate or whatever.
It's not quite as easy as 'the old days' when you could polymorph someone into a goldfish and then swallow them, but it's certainly easy enough.
For the true fanatics, the ideal master plan is to cosmetically disguise an imposter as the victim, kidnap or kill the victim and leave the dead imposter in his place, to be ressurected by his allies and proceed to take over the victims life.
"Have you noticed that good King Chauncy has been a bit off since he returned from the great beyond?"
"They say that death changes a man..."
Ressurection magic doesn't have to be a problem, it can be a storytelling goldmine of opportunities.
At the very least, the wizard is guilty of Incitement. Doesn't even matter if he used magic or not.
I would say that if you try to kill somebody, and they end up not dead, it's attempted murder, not murder. The modern parallel is that somebody who is clinically dead can be resuscitated in a modern hospital. That they were dead for a few minutes is not enough to charge murder, they have to actually die and stay dead.
In the case of suggestion and other magics, if their use can be proven then the question is how much the murderer was inclined to kill anyway? Suggestion works by suggesting a 'reasonable' course of action, therefore what was on the barbarian's mind that made murder seem reasonable? He is at least in part culpable.
If, for example, the suggestion was that the person to be murdered is about to attack the barbarian, and that person then rushes in with a drawn weapon, well then in the barbarian's mind they are just defending themselves.
On the other hand if the suggestion was that the barbarian kill them over a minor disagreement, and the barbarian does so, they are far more culpable as they were initially inclined to kill anyway.
However, all this talk of forensic magic is perhaps beside the point. Only a few hundred years ago a trial did not hinge on evidence, it hinged on character. If you could produce enough people to say you were of good character and would not have committed the crime of which you were accused, you could walk free regardless of the actual evidence. The only exception was if you had been caught red-handed.
In a world in which the gods have a direct hand, such methods as 'trial by water' could actually work; alternatively the god of justice may grant his priests a means of discerning the truth by magic with much smaller chances of failure. The case of presenting evidence may not exist because the judging High Priest just has to cast a spell to witness the events himself - and end of problem.
As for sentences, these would likely be harsh. The less resources a society has, the more likely it is that punishments like lashings, amputation and execution will be used instead of imprisonment. Again, magic can supply other punishments like a geas or other compulsion to perform a service in restitution for minor offences.
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Again, magic can supply other punishments like a geas or other compulsion to perform a service in restitution for minor offences.
The infinite versatility of bestow curse could allow for a sentencing authority to entertain customized punishments suggested by the wronged parties.
Calistria folds her hands primly and beams a beatific Mona Lisa smile at the notion of a family squabbling over which calculated eternal torment is most suitably cruel to the slayer of one of their kinfolk...