Acarthian Law: An OOG Primer

In the Alliance Denver Player’s Guide there is a section on the Laws and Codes of Acarthia. This is an IG document that describes the overall layout of the way the legal system works in Acarthia, inclusive of a variety of IG processes and procedures that take place.

It’s a good document if you want to learn the laws and codes, but it doesn’t really show what the law looks like in practice and it doesn’t really explain some of the context of the legal system and how that context differs from our modern society.

This document, by contrast, is an attempt to explain a little bit of context around what that looks like in practice from an OOG perspective. It will also examine things more in terms of who has the power to do what instead of what are the cultural norms of Acarthia, the latter being covered more heavily in the Players Guide.

A Government of People, Not Laws

It is important to understand that Acarthia is a Government of People, not a Government of Laws. People in positions of power are held as more important than the written specifics of the law. Nobility in their own land are only held accountable to their own laws if they wish to be and may change their mind basically only under their own authority. Nobles often rule according to the right and the good as opposed to by the specific letter of specific laws.

This authority is not unlimited in practice: it is constrained by both the Code of Chivalry and by greater nobles, but the power exists.

Absolute Monarchy

One of the most important thing to recognize about Acarthia, beyond that it is a Government of People, is that it is an Absolute Monarchy. While the Monarch is bound by the Code of Chivalry, no one who reads the Code of Chivalry should walk away thinking that it is in any way equivalent to a constitution. It is also important to recognize that the primary interpreter of the Code of Chivalry is the Monarch and that, within Acarthian law, there exists no power above them or beside them that could check that interpretation.

This means that, in essence, if the King wanted to ban everyone from wearing the color blue it would involve a single declaration and it would be so throughout the lands. If the King decided that the sky was purple and that everyone should refer to it as such, then that would be the case.

Hierarchy of Power

Power flows from the position of the Monarch and follows the land. A Duchess is at her highest level of power within her Duchy and is only constrained by the power and policies of the King, which includes but is not limited to the Code of Chivalry. A Baron within their Barony is constrained by the Duchess and the King. A Knight within their estate is constrained by the Baron, the Duchess, and the King. Outside of these constraints, within their own land, each individual nobel is usually given broad latitude and power.

If a Knight wanted to ban the wearing of the color blue without a very good reason, their Baron, Duchess and/or the King would probably frown on such an arbitrary use of one’s noble power and could (and potentially would) stop it, but there’s no constitutional limit that says that they can’t do it: It is simply a matter of what the higher noble has to say about the matter… that day.

These powers can be, in the general case, revocably transferred within the lands of control. Thus a Knight over an estate can delegate their power to arrest criminals to a Sheriff so that they do not need to personally track down every criminal. They can delegate the sentencing of criminals in their lands to a magistrate so that they don’t have to deal with sentencing every criminal. Sometimes that power is transferred only in a limited fashion, e.g., a noble may decide that their magistrate cannot try crimes committed by nobility, or that their magistrate can only mete out sentences up to fines while reserving the sentences of Death and above for themselves. They could also trust their magistrates with both of these, depending on the specific noble and the specific magistrate.

It is important to note that the power to delegate may also be (optionally) delegated. A Sheriff may have the power to give members of the town guard arrest power. A Magistrate, meanwhile, is likely not granted the ability to delegate their power except in the very largest of estates.

Traveling

Outside of their land every noble has a certain basic set of powers. They can arrest people. They can order a lesser ranking individual to do something, but only if it is a matter of state security or otherwise for the good of Acarthia (“defend the town!” is usually fine, “give me 5 silver” is not), checked by the nobility who have control over the land. They are given respect due to their station and their word is considered as truth wherever they are.

Beyond these, most powers are reserved for those who have actual domain over the land. Thus a Duchess may give Barons the power to sentence members of their sworn retinue within their lands and no estate Knight could change that, but that power ends at the edge of the Duchy. The Baron doesn’t have power outside of their Barony except when they are given that power by the Duchess.

Similarly, a Duchess who is in a different Duchy cannot exercise her powers to rule in legal cases unless the Duke of the new Duchy wishes to allow it. She couldn’t even sentence even a member of her own retinue without the consent of whoever’s land she is on. As a cultural reality this sort of power might be commonly granted, but there’s no requirement to do so.

Sheriffs and Magistrates

Two of the very common situations where nobles delegate their powers are to Sheriffs (who are delegated arrest powers, powers pertaining to investigation, and the duty to use them appropriately) and Magistrates (who are delegated the power to try cases and mete out sentences). These individuals form the practical arm of the law as far as most commoners are concerned.

As a general rule Sheriffs and Magistrates will try to keep with the precedents of higher Magistrates, but while these opinions may be considered persuasive they are never binding except insofar as they represent the will of the nobility who have power of the case.

It is important to note that while these are common titles and job functions the exact amount of power each of them is granted sees some variation from estate to estate, depending on the will of the appointing nobility.

Positions such as a Ducal Sheriff (or High Lord Sheriff) and Ducal Magistrate are traditionally filled by nobility and are provided with broader power throughout the land that they are appointed over. It isn’t uncommon for them to be granted a great deal of leeway in the execution of their jobs or to situationally be granted more power than a classic “Sheriff” or “Magistrate” might have, as they are frequently the ones who will be tasked when the crimes involve nobility, when they cross Estate (or Baronial… or Ducal boundaries), or when the crimes are otherwise fairly heinous in nature.

Trials

In the United States trials are formal affairs. There’s process, there’s paperwork, and there’s a lot of formality around the process of how the legal system is executed. In Acarthia trials may be somewhat formal affairs — and almost always are when done by estate magistrates — but there’s no requirement that they be conducted formally. If the noble over a land wishes someone to be declared guilty, the check on that are the greater nobility and the paladins deciding that their decision was improper, not any specific artifact of the legal process.

The process of the trial essentially exists to find more information about the case before rendering a decision. People may be called to witness, the accused may be asked to provide evidence of their innocence, they may be compelled to testify under the effects of a charm. It might be over in five minutes in front of an estate magistrate or it might last several days with an investigator out in the field conducting the interviews. The accused may be required to stand before the person making the decision or they may not even be informed that the trial is in progress.

It is important to note that there are no double jeopardy laws. If new evidence comes to light then a trial may be reopened at a later date even after someone has received a “Not Guilty” verdict, though usually if it is thought that such evidence might be out there (either to confirm guilt or innocence) a “Not Proven” verdict will be used to emphasize that the question is still open.

Appeals

Since Acarthia is a Government of People this means that the process of appeals is largely a matter of convincing someone with the power to alter a decision to do so, but there is no formalized process that one can go through in order to get an appeal: It is a matter of politics, not a matter of process.

In this regard, the chain of appeal capability usually goes as follows, from lowest authority to highest:

• Estate-level magistrates
• Knight of the estate
• Baronial Magistrate
• Baron of the Barony
• Ducal Magistrate
• Duke of the Duchy
• Royal Magistrate
• King

Thus a Royal Magistrate usually (unless the King has said otherwise) has the power to overrule an estate-level magistrate. From a purely political standpoint, however, they are unlikely to do so without first discussing the matter with the Knight of the estate. Requests in these regards should generally show all propriety if they are to be honored: A commoner blacksmith who tries appealing an estate magistrate’s decision by raising the matter with the Royal Magistrate is unlikely to get anywhere unless they have first discussed the matter with some of the in-between groups.

This also means that they are functionally very rare: A Baron doesn’t want to undermine their own Knight, and a Knight is unlikely to want to undermine their own Magistrate without a very compelling reason.

Cultural Elements, Checks on Power

One could not, from the Constitution of the United States of America alone, rederive our modern legal system. Our modern legal system is one possible manifestation of the multitude of different possible ones that would still largely correspond with the Constitution as it has been written. Similarly, while this document has focused heavily on the nature and extent of power, there are strong cultural elements in place that prevent some of the more potentially dystopian elements from coming to fruition.

The first is that every noble in the Kingdom inclusive of the King is held, at least notionally, to the Code of Chivalry and the King honestly believes in that code and would have had to live that code for a significant period of time before becoming the reigning monarch. Failure to abide by it would likely lead to revolt, as every Empowered Lord or Lady — basically any noble with actual authority — has been tested on the Code and while there is room for interpretation, outright violation is not a realistic outcome for most Acarthian monarchs.

Another check on this system is that every level is checked by the ones above it. A Knight who put massive tax burdens on the people of their estate or who ordered people into combat unreasonably could very easily find themselves talking to a higher noble or the paladins about their behavior. There are paladins who are tasked to look for such violations and represent the voice of the people in higher discussions. This system is (by design) not perfect and sometimes has (by design) failed spectacularly within the history of Acarthia — even in just the parts described in the Player’s Handbook —but on the overall it does provide checks to eventually right wrongs and abuses of power when the occur.

Conclusion

Hopefully this was a useful primer on the way that the law works IG from an OOG standpoint.

As a concluding note: this document focuses on the matter of who has the power to do what, not about the day-to-day implementation of those laws. Thus the examples will somewhat different than what is discussed in the Players Guide and may come across as much more heinous than the plot team envisions ever actually implementing the law. For example, just because the King has the power to ban everyone from wearing the color blue doesn’t mean that it is likely to ever happen.