Execution

"Collar that Dormouse!" the Queen shrieked out. "Behead that Dormouse! Turn that Dormouse out of court! Suppress him! Pinch him! Off with his whiskers!"

- Queen of Hearts, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Sometimes one's life ends not due to age or accident, but rather by state-sponsored means.

Every major nation save the Elven Homeland uses the death penalty for its capital crimes. The methods vary by location and crime, as do the attitudes towards such punishment.

In Formour, death is usually by hanging, although an old custom allows a noble to instead request to be beheaded. Formour considers the death penalty to be the last refuge—if a person's debt to society for his or her crimes cannot be met any other way, and the person is an incorrigible criminal who will remain a threat as long as he or she remains alive, then they may be executed. Formourian law allows a judge to assign a lesser sentence, but crimes such as murder often merit the full force of the law—in this case, the force of gravity from the gallows. Hanging in Formour is done by a professional hangman whenever possible. The rope is knotted and adjusted so that the person's neck is broken by the fall, rather than death through strangulation, at least ideally. The overall view is what is best for the people.

Justice among the Heldanic Confederation is often swift and personal. Whenever an authority deems that a person must die, then he or she is slain on the spot if possible, and promptly hunted down & killed if not. Exactly what constitutes proper authority will differ based on one's viewpoint, so running feuds of different parties seeking justice and retribution are fairly common, at least until someone with enough greater authority (read: power, typically through force of arms) steps in to stop the cycles of violence. While their southern neighbours in Formour might end a trial by saying "you shall be hanged at dawn—may The Light grant your soul peace," a Heldanic lord will end a similar proceeding with "how dare you" and reach for his sword.

The Killian Empire does not seem to place a very high value on life. There, crimes that would warrant a term of hard labour in Formour will instead be met with swift execution. In fact, a prisoner is legally a non-person, and may be killed for various reasons, even if the crime committed would not merit such extreme punishment in other lands. The state-sponsored killings in the Killian Empire are nearly always done with a sword. Due to the typical Killian's ability to hold its breath, and partly due to the relatively fewer trees, the Killian do not consider hanging to be a very efficient method of execution, despite the Formourian advancements in the science of the gallows. Beheading, disembowelment, impaling, and a simple throat-slice, are all various methods used. The overall view is to dispose of a disruption in society as efficiently as possible.

In the Byzant Empire, a common tradition is for the punishment to fit the crime. Enforcers of law often get creative with their methods of exacting lethal justice. An example is in the former Vridtown (currently named Scientius, now part of the Darkmouth Emirate) where necromancy was punishable by being dismembered, the pieces compressed & forced into a tiny box, and then catapulted into the harbour. Vridtown was overrun by zombies emerging from the harbour, and shoving a necromancer into the box ensured that the trip was one-way, even with the Undying ritual. Ironically, Scientius today houses a university dedicated to educating necropolitans and apprentice wizards. More typically however, crimes in the Byzant Empire are met with heavy fines. These are often payable to both the government and any victims of the crime. In theory, this would mean that the wealthy can commit an offence, and then pay for it in gold, but a poor criminal suffers a secondary punishment. In practice, the fines are often punitively large enough that even the richest offender is loath to blithely commit a crime. The overall view is that one should pay for one's offences.

In the east, the newly recognised Orcklands still deal with crime with a mob mentality. All of the wronged parties—and anyone else who happens along, often enough—assists in meting out justice, typically by stoning. Firps do not execute anyone very often, but they have a system that seems to work quite well for them. An offender is impaled on pikes, paraded about, and then carried far outside the city. This way, the entire community can see that the criminal has been punished—and in what way—and all who enter or leave the city can see the results of breaking Firpish law. The Ogres, Trolls, and Olde World Goths still have essentially tribal societies, and all typically execute by an extreme form of social ostracism. Someone deemed not worthy of sharing their lands is the same as not being worthy of sharing the same air, and is sent out into the wilderness where they often die in that harsh land.

The Olde Empire of the Hobgoblins had a rather extensive code for executions. There were a series of methods, each tied to specific crimes and circumstances. It is worth noting that the punishments were affected by the status and position of both victim and accused. That is, it was a far greater crime for a lowly herder to assault a great warrior than for the reverse to occur—which was hardly considered a crime at all. Unfortunately for historians, this extensive code of justice was entirely oral. Loremasters have determined that it was consistent, rather than arbitrary, by comparing secretly recorded Dwarven accounts that were widely apart in time and geography. These few scattered runic remnants are all that remain of the Olde Empire's laws. This oral tradition was lost with the fall of the Old Empire, and the scattering of the Hobgoblin tribes. Even the surviving tribes that still live in the Farreaches—and keep their traditional culture, at least in some small capacity—no longer retain these laws.

The Elves, as mentioned previously, do not execute criminals. In fact, it is said that the only crime that is truly punishable by death is that of not being an Elf while there. This is referring to the extreme stance that the Elves take regarding their borders—only two locations allow visitors, and even there they are not granted access to the rest of the realm. The Elven view on justice is that no one is truly incorrigible, and given enough time to reflect on one's folly even the most terrible offender will truly repent and again become a productive member of society. This view is in large part due to Elven immortality. With a growth rate approaching nil, the Elves place a very high value on life… at least with Elven life. Since criminals can potentially be given sentences of centuries, or even millennia, the theory is that anyone can change her ways granted enough time. Crime in the Elven Homeland is perhaps the lowest in all of the major nations, so there may be something to the theory. However, it must also be considered that there is a strong cultural bias among the Elves to be a useful member of their society. Crimes committed in the visitors' sections are usually handled in one of two ways, either the criminal is punished as an Elf (essentially meaning life imprisonment), or more commonly, the privilege of visiting is unceremoniously revoked (meaning the criminal is slain on sight). Unlike their eastern neighbours in the Kingdom of Formour, imprisonment among the Elves usually doesn't involve hard labour. While an Elven lord may sometimes design a unique punishment, a criminal in the Elven Homeland is usually locked away in one of three subterranean dungeons, awaiting the release date or early clemency from the imprisoning lord. It is also worth noting that justice among the Elves is meted entirely by the nobility. As their government consists of the Princes and Princesses of the Great Houses who essentially act autonomously—events that concern the entirety of the Elven people are discussed at conclaves of these lords and ladies—there is no agency among the commoners to handle matters of jurisprudence and law enforcement. While this is not unusual to a Killian, Bizzannite, or Heldan, it seems rather odd to the average Formourian, who has access to judges of common descent.