LAW GUIDE / HELP / LORE / LAW In play: help law. Also crime, praetors, bounties, justice, pagos consolidated articles, articles, lictorate, dragoons, guildsec, knight-inquisitors. IN THIS TOPIC 6 The Lictorate The Knight-Inquisitors GuildSec The Underworld Bounties The Consolidated ArticlesLaw and order in Deshret: a turf war between the state, the Church, the guilds, and the underworld.
Law and order in Deshret is not one set of rules. It is a constant, grinding turf war between overlapping powers. What counts as a crime depends on whose floor you are on, who you have offended, and who is paying the person with the authority.
On paper, the city is ruled by the Pagos, a huge and cutthroat grand council dominated by the nine Great Houses. They are the political, and usually economic, powerhouses of the city. Below them, thousands of lesser Houses scheme for scraps of favour. Apart from them, the six guilds on the Council of Six fight to control industry and trade, with no state power of their own.
In practice, power is split between four players: the state, the Church, the guilds, and the underworld. Law enforcement is just as split.
The Lictorate
The state police, army, and city watch of the Pagos, all in one. Beat officers patrol the transit shafts and market corridors, enforcing the Consolidated Articles and protecting the interests of the Houses. They are underpaid and overworked, but they have the numbers of the Pagos behind them, and their elite heavy infantry, the Dragoons, bring far more firepower. Magistrates called Praetors work out of the precinct houses. They investigate felonies, settle disputes between Houses, and sign execution warrants.
The Knight-Inquisitors
The armed hand of Sepulchre and the Church of the Nine. They do not care about secular law at all, but they care a great deal about religious law. Old-world contraband, unsanctioned technology, and heresy are all theirs to deal with. Unlike the rest of GuildSec, they carry authority over matters of faith granted by the Pagos itself.
GuildSec
The everyday name for the private armies and security of the guilds. Each guild has full, unquestioned authority on its own floors. What is a crime to the state may not be one to a guild, and the other way around.
The Underworld
The slums are split into factions. The Coterie is the biggest, but many other gangs and factions run floors of their own, and slum law is brutal and local. The Coterie holds power over most of the underworld, but it tends to stay hands-off and lets each floor run its own business. The Kolkhos will get angry about different things than the Abkal will.
Bounties
Bounties on wanted fugitives are posted publicly at precinct consoles and security desks.
The Consolidated Articles
Much of the law depends on the floor, but the secular law that applies city-wide is written in the Pagos Consolidated Articles. The Articles set out property rights, trade pacts between Houses, and the penalties for felonies in public corridors.
Much that was illegal in the old world is fully legal here, including carrying a gun openly, narcotics, and gene modification. The major capital crimes are owning unauthorised old-world relics, sabotaging life support, breaking a binding labour indenture, and treason against the Great Houses.
Slavery is not legal in Deshret, but some jobs come close. Sanctioned mages are very nearly owned by Sepulchre, and some Great Houses control their servants almost as tightly.
Read next: help great houses, help sepulchre, and help coterie.
NEARBY [P] LANGUAGES [N] LIFE IN DESHRET LORE 36 Abkal Cabiri Coterie Deshret Districts Diving Glossary Great Houses Guilds House Amari House Drepane House Kadesh House Morcant House Qamarat House Rook House Valcora House Varga House Vesalius Kolkhos Languages Law Life In Deshret Materials Mythos Ophirian League Outriders Pegasus Religion Saints Seals Sepulchre Splicers Symphony Technology The Hum Vulcani
For the game side of arrests, see help custody.
On the Agora: https://agora.underspire.net/t/law-and-order/43