Let me try it this way.
Hi there!
I think that there’s a gestalt understanding of what society and culture and law and mores look like in Warhammer, but I think it would be useful to me, and an interesting discussion for the board, to look at it more closely and see if we can tease out some explicit rules of code of behavior. Some of these are going to seem obvious, and that’s fine. And I’m certain we will discover differences in how we each portray these rules in our games. My Warhammer is not necessarily your Warhammer, after all.
To clarify, I’m looking at this from a societal point of view; specifically a human-populated Reikland point of view or what is moral and just behavior. I also want to draw a distinction between unjust behavior and unlawful behavior. I’m not as curious as to what’s illegal, and we know that some just (or at least some not-unjust) action can be made illegal [1]. And some actions that a government can legally make could be received with mutters of “that’s not right,” or outright rebellion by society [2]. Take it as given that this is a witnessed event, this is what society allows you to get away with, or punishes through law or social pressure.
I have a list of broad categories to consider, but let’s start with a big and easy one— Murder and Bodily Harm
I think we take it as given that murder and bodily harm is at the very least frowned upon and is often prohibited, but in a grim and perilous world of adventure, there clearly are exceptions. What are they?
Whom can you get away with killing? Off the top of my head:
- Soldiers are allowed to kill enemy combatants. (This is what I mean by let’s list the obvious stuff.) Soldiers are allowed to kill in the name of following orders (even if the order is seen as unjust).
- Rightful representatives of government are allowed to kill certain criminals. Lawmen are probably allowed to inflict a certain amount of harm in apprehending people committing criminal acts.
- A person may usually kill in self-defense.
- Non-human enemies of the state (greenskins, beastmen, skaven) may be killed with impunity.
- Witch-hunters can kill declared heretics, (non-college) spell-casters, mutants and cultists.
- The government can kill mutants, I believe?
What are some of the questions or questionable cases?
- Can a noble kill a commoner without cause? Or only in certain cases? Can someone of higher rank kill or commit bodily harm on someone of lower rank and expect to get away with it (in a societal sense, not necessarily a legal sense)?
- Can a soldier kill a captured or surrendered enemy?
- Can the government commit bodily harm as a punishment? (For instance, my culture allows for execution of murderers, but if the government cut off the hand of a thief there would be outrage.)
- Is self-defense class conscious? Can the silver tier kill someone of the brass tier in self-defense while the brass tier is not permitted to kill someone of silver or gold tier in self-defense?
- Can a citizen kill a cultist or a mutant? (Drawing a distinction between a citizen and a mob.)
- Are wizards expected to never kill with magic? (I.e. would society freak out if they did)
- Are priests of X prohibitted from killing? (Ok, I know they may, but I'm setting up the next question) May only militant priests kill in a military setting? Outside of a military setting are there limits on whom a priest could kill, have killed?
Are there significant differences in society's rules on murder and harm if you're in a city, a town, a rural environment or the wilderness?
Or is my starting premis flawed? Is the assumption than anyone (or a any certain class) can kill and the exception should be the times when one cannot?
Again, no one’s answers will be right or wrong but with very few examples in published materials (SIgmar’s Heirs has information on strange random laws, but very little on common assumptions), I am curious what people’s default assumptions about the rules and prohibitions of killing in the Empire/Reikland are.
What do you think?
--Rob
[1] In my culture and city jaywalking, crossing the city street against traffic, is illegal/fineable. We largely agree that government has the right or ability to make it fineable, but I don’t know anyone who considers jaywalking an immoral or unjust action. (And most people would be shocked should it ever be enforced.)
[2] Again, in my culture and country there are certain business and banking practices that many consider morally dubious at best yet are legally permitted. It’s the sort of thing where the actor defends himself by saying, “But it’s not against the law,” and everyone else makes that face which suggests that, yes, it’s not against any laws but we still don’t really think you should be doing stuff like that.
Next topic: Sex!