Fantasy World Law: Prohibition Against Summoning Dangerous Entities Within City Limits

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah, they have since found that the oubliette once believed to be a horrible punishment used on particularly hated criminals (a pit in the ground with only an exit far above the base and no lights) was just a refuse dump or septic tank, not a jail.  Yes, you could find human remains there, but that was not due to imprisonment.

[DShomshak]

OP's question seems to assume hat summoned entities are an "otrdinary" problem that mundane authorities believe they can handle on their own. They don't just wait helplessly for some wandering hero/murder hobo to resolve the problem for them. Or at least they can try. (PCs get involved when the situation concerns them personally, the mundane authorities have failed or ar blocked/insufficient in some way... or if the PCs *are* part of the mundane authorities, such as the lord of the city's "special problems" squad.)

 

A lot depends on the feasibility of detecting who did the summoning. Depending on the entity, it may be difficult even to know that something was summoned. (Part of what scares people about magic -- and attracts them to it -- is that it's often a *secret* way to work your will. Kill your enemies with voodoo doll curses, invisible imps, projecting your soul as an astral vampire, etc... and nobody can tell it was you!) So, how do the authorities know that a summoning occurred? Is it only when the entity is obvious, like an elemental tearing up buildings? Or are there ways of detecting the presence of subtler entities?

 

Also, are there ways of telling who summoned an entity besides finding catching them red-handed, or finding elaborate and permanent paraphernalia (summoning circle, distinctive consecrated tools, etc.)? For instance, are there divinatory magics that can tell if a person has worked magic recently? Can these methods be spoofed or redirected to implicate the innocent? (Depending on the detection method, gold may be a sufficient "redirection.")

 

Dean Shomshak

[archer]

1 hour ago, DShomshak said:

OP's question seems to assume hat summoned entities are an "otrdinary" problem that mundane authorities believe they can handle on their own. They don't just wait helplessly for some wandering hero/murder hobo to resolve the problem for them. Or at least they can try. (PCs get involved when the situation concerns them personally, the mundane authorities have failed or ar blocked/insufficient in some way... or if the PCs *are* part of the mundane authorities, such as the lord of the city's "special problems" squad.)

 

A lot depends on the feasibility of detecting who did the summoning. Depending on the entity, it may be difficult even to know that something was summoned. (Part of what scares people about magic -- and attracts them to it -- is that it's often a *secret* way to work your will. Kill your enemies with voodoo doll curses, invisible imps, projecting your soul as an astral vampire, etc... and nobody can tell it was you!) So, how do the authorities know that a summoning occurred? Is it only when the entity is obvious, like an elemental tearing up buildings? Or are there ways of detecting the presence of subtler entities?

 

Also, are there ways of telling who summoned an entity besides finding catching them red-handed, or finding elaborate and permanent paraphernalia (summoning circle, distinctive consecrated tools, etc.)? For instance, are there divinatory magics that can tell if a person has worked magic recently? Can these methods be spoofed or redirected to implicate the innocent? (Depending on the detection method, gold may be a sufficient "redirection.")

 

Dean Shomshak

 

If some entity was witnessed inside the city and I were running the city, my default assumption would be that someone in the city summoned it unless there was a hell of a good reason to assume otherwise (like a visible trail of destruction, miles long, leading to the city from someplace else).

 

And I'd assume that anyone who managed to hold onto his position in a medieval fantasy society would be at least that paranoid or he wouldn't have been able to hold onto his position.

 

If you're expecting to hold on to your position, you damned better try to deal with whatever comes up or at least be able to put on a good show that you're doing something to handle it. 

 

Passing a law and attempting to look for the culprits doesn't actually cost anything and what you're doing is at least highly visible. 

 

I wouldn't expect a city guard to be able to tell the difference between a summoning spell and a cooking pot without help. But if there's anyone in the city who can at least describe the basics of what might be needed, I could trust a bunch of meatheads to go into the house and place of business of every non-noble in the city and look for what was described to them. (Expensive-looking colored candles which perhaps have a scent, magic circles, flowers out of season whether still growing or looking freshly cut, unusual scents which cut through the usual city stench, or whatever else was described to them.)

 

At the worst, the guard will roust a large number of people and finger someone who could be blamed. And since punishing someone is often more important than punishing the right someone, that would often be enough for the leaders of the city. Most people who would have loosed a monster into the city would presumably have done it for a purpose rather than for kicks. They would either have accomplished their purpose by loosing the monster or would have died in the process of losing control of the monster...making all the subsequent investigation and punishment into "security theater" rather than something which would actually increase security of the city.

 

And you can't discount the possibility that whoever is running the city isn't bright/informed enough to realize that security theater isn't enough to actually provide real security. A lot of people would come to be in charge through ruthlessness, power, influence, riches, or for some other reason which would leave them poorly suited to figuring out how to deal with magical threats. They'd just have the knowledge that "something needs to be done about magical threats" then turn to their usual methods of dealing with problems, without having any realization that what they usually do isn't going to be at all adequate.

[Chris Goodwin]

I think I've posted before about a questionnaire given to wizards entering cities.  Wizards are asked the following:

• Do you know the following spells or equivalents:  suppress fire, cure disease, purify water, light, night vision. 

• Do you know any kind of warning spells? 

• Do you know any fire spells?

• Have you ever been banned from any city as a result of uncontrollable fires, or any other incidents related to fire?

• Do you know any death spells?

This thread has inspired me to add summoning and banishment spells to the list.

[archer]

5 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

I think I've posted before about a questionnaire given to wizards entering cities.  Wizards are asked the following:

• Do you know the following spells or equivalents:  suppress fire, cure disease, purify water, light, night vision. 

• Do you know any kind of warning spells? 

• Do you know any fire spells?

• Have you ever been banned from any city as a result of uncontrollable fires, or any other incidents related to fire?

• Do you know any death spells?

This thread has inspired me to add summoning and banishment spells to the list.

 

 

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

I figure that's what the mage's guild is for, or its equivalent; to police and control use of magic and people who can use magic in their areas.