Cruel & Unusual

Cruel & Unusual is a tome discovered within the Wreck of the Exordium in the Hurst of the Incarcerice.

## Description

Written by the Fourth Magus Sarcoril Swiftdras shortly after the Astedian Ascendency, Cruel & Unusual details some of the inner facets of crime and punishment from across the Realms of Ahlus before their consolidation beneath the banner of the Astedian Empire, as well as speculation on how the Increscent Six might seek to manage the overarching justice necessary to manage the populace of a continent.

## Reading

### Completed by Arnica

For there to be civilisation, there must civility. One simply has to look to Yaldin, to Ilemer, to Theamera, and they will see that unity and decency is underlined, firmly or otherwise, with agreements and assurances. These agreements and assurances may be mundane and trivial in nature, to simply not finish the contents of another man's goblet at a campside fire whilst they are fetching for firewood, but they likewise exist on a level of Realmwide scope - and beyond. Labourers mark their contracts with a signature, a handshake or likewise somatic agreement. Marriage pacts are tied with ribbons, the sharing of food, drink, objects and vows, and so binding takes place. Order and law are fundamental baseplates to societal flourishment, and yet there are those that expunge these edicts and proclamations, acting through self-centred goals and intents - or nil intent at all, simply mindless thoughts, words and deeds.

And so, it has consistently proven necessary for there to be a rigorous statement of justice, the deliverance of good and ill unto those deserving of it. For the latter, numerous punitive measures have existed across the centuries, some steadfast and unyielding, others evolving and shifting with changes made by new rulers, new governments. While many of the Knights of Atralran will seek to imbue the Virtues to which they are bound in their deliverance of justice by sword and spell, there are others that make a more mundane show of such things - and others that instead wield punishment as a weapon to dissuade, and thus consider it just and right to make such methods as malign as befitting. It is true, of course, that even in cases of the most well-meaning system of crime and punishment, variations exist, hence the forthcoming discussion.

Choices of methods for imprisonment and execution, the two most punitive and lasting methods, often reflect the Realm from which they hail. The conditions of imprisonment vary across the continent, with some Realms holding that the process of restricting the activities and movements of an individual punishment enough, and thus ensuring some moderate comforts available, avoiding matters such as scarcity of food and drink, which is commonplace elsewhere. Likewise, the level of isolation experienced by inmates varies too, with some castles and keeps maintaining individual cells managed by gaolers, whereas the Empire of Raq famously employed great pits dug into the ground carved into vast subterranean domes to prevent their egress, at the base of which prisoners were able to roam freely, maintaining a civilisation of sorts amongst themselves, with the delivery of basic supplies periodically. Although perhaps not commonly known outside scholarly circles, the Astedian Realm is built upon an act of imprisonment more curious and novel than most more mundane methods, in reference of course to Count Hillen Daydraft.

Considering the latter route, a sword is an easy and common choice for many seeking to deliver unto their guilty a swift and dignified death, and is thus popular throughout the southern kingdoms. By contrast, the Sunar people, famed alchemists, instead brew tinctures to cause cessation of respiratory, cardiac or wider circulatory function, whereas the Giadoese favour a garrotte. It is said that amongst the remoter colonies of the Ironfangs that execution by falling, with individuals cast from cliff-faces, or in some cases, given the option to leap for themselves. All of the former are considered nothing if not swift in nature, in contrast to those methods elsewhere. Rumours circle that the folk of Lylcairn utilise a number of stinging insects and other foul swamp humours to deliver death to those courting it, the foulest amongst these tales reporting that the guilty are sealed in place in resin and slathered with honey and sugarsap to encourage rot and petrification. The Northern Tribes may stake individuals stripped to their smallclothes and exposed to the elements, echoed by the Anorcorians - a mirrored punishment causing death to chilling cold or hungry beasts against that of searing heat and sand storms that can flay flesh from bone.

The choice therefore must be made, and promptly, for the standard set beneath Astedian rule. Thus far policy has been maintained in the Realms of capitulation, where local customs and traditions have been maintained until new standards and edicts may be lifted to replace them. Many of these customs of punishment have existed for centuries, and their disruption and change overnight by the decree of an individual they consider foreign may further stir anguish against unification. Conversely however, how can a truly unified front be made when one Realm looks upon their neighbour, a neighbour with which they now technically no longer maintain a definitive border, and remark that their punishment is cruel & unusual in nature, unbefitting of the Sixteen that gave us the will and scope to make such declarations of justice? Perhaps the answer is to look once again to the gods for the answer, to seek to do as they have done historically, casting out those that stood against them before the Second Gift, and striking down those that continue to do so. Time will tell, just as history will do likewise, ever a lesson of what may yet to come.