How would a magocracy (with median caster level 5-7) go about making documents forgery proof?
First, multiple witnesses. The memory of several people is hard (not impossible) to forge. Trained people can memorise quite a lot.
Have backup copies stored somewhere hard to access. An extradimensional space or even another plane.
If the document is made of, say, an adamantine plate, then altering it will be quite difficult. Forging from scratch will be expensive as well. Obviously this is only for important documents.
Yeah, requiring multiple witnesses to be there in person with some sort of stamp (unique to each individual) and having multiple copies of the documents.
For instance the governemnt could keep a copy, as well as each individual involved in the transaction. If the government doesn't have a copy of the document, then they could argue that your copy is invalid, and likely a forgery.
Having multiple witnesses which must be present at the time of signing along with seals increases the difficulty or replicating things. Especially if the seal is unique to each individual, and the government keeps an official record of each person's seal. That way you can't just get a copy of a generic seal and try to reverse engineer something to look the same. It's hard to fake something if you don't know what it should look like.
And as AVR suggests, having these stored in an extra dimensional safe space that few have access to would be the pinnacle of safety.
Imagine a permanent antimagic demiplane with several constructs to protect, as well as adamantine doors and such. Still not impossible to break into, but it's going to be very difficult.
Arcane marks as “notary.” To my knowledge those can’t be forged and are unique to each caster.
OK - but how about things like licences & permits? Something that cannot be easily checked against a central repository
OK - but how about things like licences & permits? Something that cannot be easily checked against a central repository
Include the arcane mark of a person who you can check with on the licence - and accept that the bureaucracy of this system cannot match that of a modern nation-state.
OK - but how about things like licences & permits? Something that cannot be easily checked against a central repository
Why can't it? Just because it's an inconvenience to the average person doesn't mean it can't be done.
"Sir, I'm going to have to check that your driver's license is valid. Please wait in the holding cell while I check, I should be back in 6 to 8 weeks."
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Magical checksums using the magical version of ssha3 (spell secure hashing algorithm).
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oh. This one is simple- blood biography.
The spell lets you use a drop of blood (potentially dried), and lets you ask 4 questions- who are you, what are you (race, and occupation), an outline of how the blood was shed, and the time the blood was shed.
So you just make people cut their thumb and put their thumb print on the document. Done. When blood biography is cast later, then the person can say "Oh, I cut my thumb in order to sign this particular contract."
This also has a fail safe where they can say "those jerks forced me to sign the contract and then made me give my thumbprint!".
In order to prevent attempt to alter the document later, it is best to have lines drawn through the blank space left on the page. Thus the person can say 'After making sure that the document didn't have blank space, I gave my thumb print on it".
I am sure there are ways to mess with this (mind control, maybe some special forgery stuff)... but this seems good enough for most contracts.
That does seem pretty solid Lemeres. Especially when combined with the other things we've suggested.
Remember, the more safety features you add the harder it is to fake.
That does seem pretty solid Lemeres. Especially when combined with the other things we've suggested.
Remember, the more safety features you add the harder it is to fake.
I like the blood biography option, since it keeps moderately skilled wizards in a lot of business.
Everytime someone argues over a contract in trial, the sides have to pay for the casting of a 3rd level spell. That at least requies....what, level 5 as a caster? Maybe more if you want to have one caster cover the day's docket?
Basically- a magocracy would highly enjoy enacting policies that made merchants pay for more spell casting. It is a simple procedure (just add blood to a regular contract- even an illiterate idiot could form a contract since it just needs a bloody thumbprint) which means it is cheap in everyday use- that makes it easy to adopt as compared to something that needs magic items or casters EVERY TIME. But it still has that nice sizable chunk of change for paying for a caster when you try to get the government involved.