Im curious about your intake or any information you have that you can point me to about the political and real power of the church of sigmar vs the empire authority.

Scenario:

Where does the fine line land between these two power structures, would be it normal for a Warrior priest of sigmar to be arrested or detained in some fashion (on suspicion) by a Militia, Guardsman, Roadwarden, Knight, Knight captain, so on.

In what manner if any would it be normal for the church to act if such a thing would happen.

Are the Templars of Sigmar and witch hunters acting without any "authority" to back them up as such, yet they are expected to hunt down cultists and criminals.

The scenario itself is as follows.

A Inn has been taken over by mutants, and is used to catch unsuspecting visitors to use as blood sacrificed to their foul god.

The adventurers stay at the place, uncover the plot and kill the mutants.

In the group there is a Witch Hunter, a Warrior Priest of Sigmar and a Light wizard. (All with papers and dressing the part)

What happens afterwards is that Roadwardens come to the inn after the plot is uncovered, the adventurers explain what happened and show them

the temple as well as the dead mutants.

The Roadwardens are in over their head so they are supposed to pull the adventurers to another town if this happens to get things sorted.

However, the adventurers are on a time dependant mission and put their foot down on being brought to said town.

Are the Roadwardens in the right, or the adventurers, given their careers.

How would this play out in court if a fight would take place between said groups if neither side stands down or should one side have given in cause

one side "outranks" the other ?

Any book or such in hardcover you can point me to that can better clarify where the authority as such between church and state would be, or any released material that could better show me how things stand between these two sides.

(Feel free to post your opinion as well but hard information would be better)

The 2nd ed book Sigmar's Heirs deals with this kind of thing (though I can't remember if it talks about Roadwardens).

I think the best answer for the story is that there is no clear cut rule. The Empire is a bureaucratic mess, full of overlapping and contradictory laws. There may be ten different statutes that govern this situation, each one requiring a different outcome.

The way I would run it, the Roadwardens insist that they have jurisdiction and insist the party comes with them. Then (depending on how much leeway the group has for their time-dependent mission) the challenge becomes either convincing the RW that they are wrong, being dragged to a nearby settlement and convincing the local magistrate that the party is in the right, or escaping from RW custody.

The cult of sigmar is the most powerful political force in the empire with the exception ofthe emperor himself. And as they effectivley treat the emperor as as a sort of pope figure their objective and goals are very closey tied.

In that example the Witch Hunter has full authority. He is given the power of judge, jury & executioner by the cult of sigmar. Wizards and Priests of sigmar also carry a lot of clout mostly because the people of the empire and very supersitious and generally afraid of magic users.

The roadwardens inisist on taking them to thier base to get statements, then you could argue that as the witchunter and priest are in the cult of sigmar, and one of the main tennents is to obey the rule of law as laid down by the emperor they may feel inclined to go out of the sence of duty, but equally the witchunter is within his rights to conscript the road wardens into service.

Talesin said:

this is how I know it, I have read many texts that allude to this but none specific comes to mind. My personal opinion is also this view, the witch hunter is judge jury and executioner when it comes to heretics, mutants and other evils in the empire. The witch hunter has wiped the cult, has proof and credible witnesses (a priest of sigmar) and yet the witch hunter is bound by law. Priests and witch hunters need to follow the rules as well lest they set a bad example of society and strength, unity and honour are a big component of sigmarite teachings and by right should conform to the lawful preceedings of the common folk.

That being said the witch hunter doesn't have to take commands fom some shhitty roadwardens if he doesn't want to, he's a bloody witch hunter on sacred duty for Sigmar! He should be able to charm, intimidate, brow beat his way out of legal implications as minor as a group of roadwardens. Unless there are 20 of them he isn't going to be feel obligated to listen to them, only the most zealous of lawmen would attempt to detain a witchhunter for questionin0 in a small group, to challenge a witch hunter is to challenge the word of the Emperor himself. Technically he could conscript them into service and say they have to ride 30 miles from this location, giving him time to book it out of there asap.

The priest could do much the same thing, although not as powerful as the witch hunter (minus forced conscription, priests can only do willing conscription unless commanded to by the emperor of the g.theo or something) the priest could easily charm his way out of it. I think it depends on your characters, are they lawful or are they anti heroes? Don't let the players meta game the most favourable response, if they're good role players they should know what to do.

The characters are lawful, good oriented, have not shown any criminal tendencies so on. However, the time limit part is cause of a chaos sorcerer that they are tracking, meaning the holdup could cause them to loose their prey.

Lets say the characters blatantly fail all fellowship tests and the groups butt heads so seriously that it becomes a question of the group possibly giving up the chaos sorcerer to sort this by going to a town in the other direction with the Roadwardens, or they accept the consequenses of having to seriously incapitate the Roadwardens....

How would the following scenario in your opinion play out, what would be the churches read on the situation, or the law officials/judges.

Branded criminals ? Charged with murder if one of the Roadwardens dies ?

I am not really seeing the backround image of where things stand in such a situation or most situations given the strange role of the careers involved.

(The cult has caused serious proplems in other areas, endangering whole towns, so the prey is important in their eyes)

An easy way to do it could be to have the PC's give their word that they will return to the roadwarden after they completed their mission. The roadwarden would probably do well in believing the word of a Witch Hunter and a Priest of Sigmar.

You could also use the "shame" mechanic from Lure of Power to have an extended argument between the roadwarden and the PC's, give them bonus dice (at least some white dice) for their status as Sigmarites and Wizards and throw in more bonuses if they explain the urgancy of their mission.

And if all rolls fail for the pcs ? How would the backround approach the situation, im trying to see what the church and state would do in your opinions if the situation escalates into combat. Are the Pc´s now criminals given the situation ?

Arez said:

I'd say that it depends. The Witch Hunter could argue that the roadwarden was tainted by chaos, since the RW tried to stop them from going after a chaos sorcerer. The superiors of the PC's (higher ranking priests and witch hunters) might not be happy though, but I'd problably handle it as an internal matter for the church where the PC's might be tried for their "crimes".

But it all depends on how the players play it, but as a roadwarden I wouldn't push my luck with two sigmarites, I'd be satisfied if they promised to come back and explain more in detail what happened at a later time. Remember that almost everyone are afraid of the witch hunters.

The witchunter really holds all the cards in this case, if wants to pursue the chaos sorc over the wishes of the roadwardens then there's little legally that the wardens can do - and remember everyone is scared of witchhunters, one word from them can send you to the pyre. if the Pc's fail all the rolls and go with the road wardens and let sorc escape then the cult of sigmar will not be please at all with them.

the likely outcome if this was a group of npcs would be that the witchunter would give some symbol of office to 1 of the road wardens to report back to his commander as proof of the attack on the inn and then take the rest of the roadwardens with him to take on the sorc. He may even request backup from the road warden commander.

But it does come down to the way your characters play it, they are not bound to follow the commands of the road wardens but may choose to go it if serves their ultimalte goals.

I have similar case a Priest of Sigmar goes to the Herald guild in Altdorf asking for information, the guild member finds a book with the relevant data, The priest ask to buy the book but it a one of kind ledger and the Herald will not sell it, then they start arguing. The Herald offers to have it scribed down for the priest but he’s in hurry eventually the priest gets so angry that he tears out of the book the needed page throwing enough gold on the counter to pay for scribing 10 times over and walks out.

Now how would the Herald react?