LawsOOC

A Hold keeps a law book. Server staff may also let a ruling faction (the Empire, a High King’s court) or a guild make laws.

• Where laws apply. A Hold’s laws apply in the Hold and everywhere in it. A ruler’s laws apply in every Hold it rules, beside each Hold’s own, and stop where it stops ruling. A guild’s rules bind its own members only: guards never enforce them.
• Who enforces them. Nobody is named on a law. Guards whose watch reaches a place enforce the laws that apply there.
• Enact, amend, repeal. Ranks with “Enact, amend and repeal laws” (the Jarl and the Steward to begin with) write them. Amending adds a new version; repealing ends it. Nothing is erased: every earlier version stays readable.
• Punishments. A law gives one punishment in words, or punishments by severity: Low, Medium and High, each with its condition (“High: Exile, where the riot resulted in death”). Amounts and times are the judge’s to set in each case.
• Provisions. Some parts of a code aren’t offences (general provisions, self-defence, trial procedure). Mark them as a provision: they stay in the book and are never charged.
• Parts and sections. A law may sit in a part (Crimina) and a section (Contra Corona); the book groups laws by both.
• Repeal a whole part. On the law book, “Repeal a whole part” repeals every law in force in one part at once (a treaty that ended). Each keeps its history.
• Paste a code. “Paste a code” on the law book reads a whole code at once: headings for parts and sections, each law’s title with its text under it, and Punishment: or Low: / Medium: / High: lines. You check what was read before it is enacted.
• Public or private. The book is public on the maker’s page, for anyone to read. A law marked private (a secret decree) is read only by the court (“Read our private laws”) and by guards whose watch reaches it (“Read the private laws of the Holds within our reach”).
• Proclaiming. Enacting, amending or repealing a public law may be proclaimed: a notice pinned to the maker’s public board.
• Citing. An exile, a warrant, a bounty or a case’s charge may cite a law from the book. It keeps the version it cited, so later amendments never change old records. A Hold may choose that a law must be cited, and then words of your own aren’t accepted.
• On Discord. /laws lists the public laws of a Hold.