02 - Iron Kingdoms W.. - Captain Spud Is Amazing

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Church Law
By tradition, albeit unwritten, secular authorities
tend not to interfere with religious laws. This applies
primarily to the Morrowan faith but also to local
Temples of Menoth in Khador. There is no such
concept of secular authority in the Protectorate,
and both faiths have their own laws, punishments,
and judges.
In the Church of Morrow, officials are generally
volunteers of prelate rank or higher following the
Path of Justice and are sometimes assisted by Knights
of the Prophet. Serious crimes may be relegated to
the nearest Vicarate Council, and justices among
the vicars oversee these trials. Crimes committed by
priests are taken seriously. If found guilty, the priest is
stripped of rank and authority within the Church and
may be excommunicated. Some become wards of the
Church and are put to work serving the community.
In addition to regulating their priesthood, the
Church of Morrow has a special jurisdiction over
Thamarites and is empowered to track down and
punish priests of Thamar and other cultists deemed
dangerous or subversive. This can lead to executions
although such severe penalties are typically reserved
for infernalists and necromancers, and the Church
relies primarily on the Order of Illumination to track
down such evildoers.
The Temple of Menoth has less leeway outside
of the Protectorate, but its priests are subject to the
nearest local visgoth, and punishments are sometimes
handled by ominous scrutators. In Khador, scrutators
are a rare sight and are both loathed and feared as
little more than torturers and executioners. Indeed, in
some remote Khadoran Menite communities, priests
handle all trials and justice.
Non-Human Justice
Traditionally, disputes among the Nyss might not
be resolved at all or resolved only through direct
action by the family through various social controls
such as gossip, feuding, and counseling by shard
leaders or by meetings of elders. Usually among the
shards there is a “peacemaker” —one with a specific
dispute resolution role. Elaborate peacemaking
rituals—some lasting a year—involve hostages,
ceremonies, and feasts. Offenses traditionally
addressed include theft, murder, and adultery as well
as failure to observe proper hunting practices, which
in some cases is considered tantamount to murder.
Actions taken range from those in which a Nyss
family might respond to an offense by moving away
from the offender to another shard, to execution or
banishment of the offender, to payment or restitution
for the offense, to physical punishment (the husband
of an adulterous winter elf is permitted to beat her), to
a lengthy probation. Among the shards, the status of
the offender and victim are taken into consideration
in determining the punishment.
The ogrun contest their innocence before the clan
and to a solitary judge who sits in the Seat of Judgment.
The accused and accuser go through a series of oaths
that put their honor and their family’s honor on the
line, and the judge listens objectively. Witnesses must
ask permission of the judge to speak, and rigors—tests
of pain and endurance—are common during these
trials. An ogrun found guilty of sullying his honor and
the honor of his family is erased from ogrun lore and
exiled as thargren—“without honor.” In severe cases his
family may be labeled thargren as well, and in the most
severe cases the ogrun is “encased in stone,” which
means either he is closed off in a cave with no way out
or is stoned to death by his peers.
Goblin justice once again illustrates the differences
between gobbers and bogrin. The bogrin have virtually
no justice system whatsoever. If a bogrin feels wronged,
he simply attacks the one who has wronged him or
learns to live with it. Sometimes multiple bogrin may
participate in mob justice against their own, usually
resulting in severe beatings or death. Gobbers, on the
other hand, encourage the accused and accuser to
argue their case to the chieftain or chieftains of their
kriel, and then their leaders decide upon the verdicts
and penalties. Although it is rarely permanent, much
of the time gobber sentencing results in exile from the
kriel. The guilty party must go out into the wide world
and “learn his lesson” before returning to the kriel.
An alternative to exile sometimes involves a difficult
task or perilous quest. It should be noted though that
gobbers have a somewhat loose concept of ownership
for practical things like food, tools, and clothing; they
are much more attached to specially crafted items and
weapons. More violent crimes are typically not in their
nature and rarely occur.
World Guide 131