Adventures in the North (1: Thanelaw)

ADVENTURES IN THE NORTH

THE LAWS OF THANES

By Grant Hoeflinger

“This is all a simple misunderstanding,” the man said as he was dragged across the rough wooden floor of the jail, toward the large cell in the back area. The iron manacles cut into his wrists as the guardsmen pulled him along. “Please listen to me,” he pleaded, “I’m sure that if someone will only let me explain!“

     The guards ignored him, except for a swift kick to his chest, and hauled him the rest of the way to the cell, throwing him inside and locking the door.

     “Do you know…” he paused, having trouble catching his breath again as he rose to his feet, “do you know… who I am?”

     None of the guards turned to look at him. In addition to the two that had dragged him into the cell, there were three more guards occupying the large common area of the jail. Most of them sat at a long table in the center of the room, taking turns rolling dice made from what appeared to be antler, while the last poked at the coals of a fire feebly burning in the hearth on the long wall of the jail.

     “Surely you’ve heard of me?” He said with some incredulity. “Svofnir the Wanderer? The Skald who can sleep in no bed twice?” Svofnir paused for a moment, watching the guards’ reactions. “Ah, yes, I see that you have heard of me!” He stuck his hand through the bars of the cell, stabbing a finger in the direction of the guard who had looked up a bit at his name. “You must understand, this is unfair! I’ve done nothing wrong! You’ve no proof that I—“

     “Don’t need ‘proof’ with you,” one of the guards interrupted with a snort before taking a long pull from the tankard at the table. “Your pants were around your ankles in the bedroom of the Jarl’s daughter.”

     “Just what are you saying about that dear girl?” Svofnir demanded. “You are the one calling out against her honor, not I! And where is the thing, summoned to hear my innocence, to take measure of my offer of wergild to the Jarl?”

      “Quiet you!” snarled another guardsman, tossing the now-empty mug he’d been drinking from to one side. “The Jarl had arranged to wed his daughter to Jarl Hamal’s son! Would have brought a peace to our lands not seen in ten years’ time! What wergild could you offer that would be equal?”

     Svofnir was silent for a moment as he watched the other guards drink deeply from their tankards. “I have travelled the lands, from Arfhrdheim to beyond the Mournwood, even to the feet of the Frozen Thrones. I have dined at the tables of Jarls and Thanes, spoken words passed down from the Red Muse herself… surely, I could help to settle this dispute, and bring peace to the—“

     The laughter of the guards drowned out the rest of Svofnir’s words. He waited patiently for them to finish.

     “You’ll not pay wergild with words,” the guard by fire spat as he poked at the sputtering flames. “Lut Kjarrson, greatest huskarl to ever serve a Jarl of these lands, will face you in a duel, and it will be your blood that will pay your wergild!”

     “Fine,” Svofnir said with a sniff. “If I am to die tomorrow at the sword of the Jarl’s henchman, could I not at least have a slaked throat?”

     “Why waste good mead on someone like you?”

     “Mead? No, I find it makes me tired. Water will do just fine.”

     One of the guards rose from the table, his movements awkwardly unsteady, and approached the cell. By the look on the guard’s face, Svofnir prepared himself to be spat upon, determined not to flinch.

     As he drew close, the guard’s eyes rolled back and he teetered for a moment before pitching forward. Svofnir, his arms extended through the bars of his cell, caught him as best he could, and pulled the guard close the edge of the cell. He looked up to regard the other guardsmen, and was relieved to see that they had also fallen unconscious, antler dice scattered on the table before them. Even the guard who had tended to the fire was out.

     “Don’t worry,” Svofnir said conversationally to the guard he held. “If the servant did everything as I explained to him, you’ll wake up in roughly an hour’s time with no worse than an aching head.” Svofnir patted at the guard’s pockets, hoping to find a key. It would have been a shame to have seduced the servant earlier only to find that the guard didn’t have a means for him to escape the cell. He’d not need to wait for Lut’s blade if the guards awoke and Svofnir were still here!

USING THANELAW IN YOUR GAMES

In many fantasy settings we are presented with a codified set of laws, frequently strictly enforced in a manner similar to what we experience in our own world; guardsmen learn of a crime, investigate using whatever information they can find, apprehend the culprits, take them before some judicial figure or body, and a judgment is delivered and enforced. This is so frequently used because it is easy for us to understand. We may not have personally gone through the “system,” but we either know someone who has, or we have watched some procedural show that makes us think that we know how the system works

     Thanelaw, as presented in the Ice Kingdoms Setting, is not quite what many of us are used to. Chapter Three of the Ice Kingdoms Campaign Setting gives us an overview of Thanelaw: a collection of shared customs and traditions which maintain a certain degree of peace among the people of the Ice Kingdoms. Thanelaw finds its origins in the stories and sagas of the gods and men from the earliest days of the Ice Kingdoms, and just as stories and sagas may take on certain embellishments or variants between different tribes and cultures, so too can Thanelaw.

     One of the most common elements of Thanelaw is that the guilty shall suffer a punishment equal to the harm they have inflicted. Often, this takes the form of wergild, where every person and every piece of property has a price associated with it. Theft or destruction of a property would see the guilty party paying the appropriate wergild to the injured party. Not all crimes warrant simply paying wergild, however, and criminals in the Ice Kingdoms can expect to find themselves facing imprisonment, indentured servitude, or a duel between the guilty and harmed parties. The worst criminals will suffer outlawry, being stripped of the rights and protections afforded to nearly everyone by Thanelaw.

     Ordinarily disputes involving Thanelaw are decided by a group of respected free citizens called a thing. Things may be made up of village or clan elders, they may only band together when judgment is needed, or they may hold responsibilities all the time; the composition and exact duties of a thing will vary from place to place in the Ice Kingdoms. Where a Jarl or Thane rules, a thing may be a mere formality, paid lip service while the ruler determines the penalty for crimes committed.

     The flexibility of Thanelaw makes it difficult to list down any set of official laws and codes for game masters to use in their games, but that is a feature, not a bug. With the exact details of Thanelaw varying so much from region to region, game masters have considerable freedom to adjust things as needed for a scenario or adventure.

    This freedom can be demanding on a game master, particularly when you have so many other details to work with and your players have just sprung yet another surprise on you. To assist game masters in coming up with proper crimes and punishments while using Thanelaw, here are some examples to use in your own game, or to draw inspiration from:

Damage Of Property

     Tavern brawls may be a staple in fantasy literature, but who pays the price for those broken tables, chairs, and all that spilt ale? Under Thanelaw, a thing might determine the wergild of each broken item, and assign a fee to the guilty party equal to the total value of the destroyed objects. Alternatively, a local Jarl might throw the guilty party into jail for a few days, or force them to work hard labor sawing the lumber needed to make replacements, particularly if the guilty party cannot come up with the coin to pay an appropriate wergild.

Death Of Kin Or Shield Mate

     This will be a more serious crime. While wergild covers the price of a person’s life, the value of which will certainly be based on the deceased’s status, a local thing may need more time to determine a proper wergild, or even to convince the deceased’s family not to demand that the wergild be paid in blood! During this period of consideration, the guilty party will assuredly be kept imprisoned to await the thing’s decision. At this level of crime, many things will entertain the idea of allowing the kin of the deceased to call for a duel with the guilty party, probably to the death. Some Jarls or Thanes may decide to press the guilty into service in the local fyrd or the ruler’s theng.

Disgrace Or Dishonoring A Person Or Clan

     Even the wisest of things will have difficulty assigning an appropriate wergild for a crime that brings same or dishonor upon a party. Spreading vicious rumors; promiscuous encounters with youths still young enough to be under the protection of their elders; or creating a humiliating saga that you regale at all the local gatherings, forcing the subject of your sagas to hide in shame—these clearly can cause harm, but are difficult to assign a monetary value to. In most cases, a thing will allow the injured party to challenge the guilty party to a duel, particularly if being defeated in such a duel would bring equal shame and humiliation to the guilty party. Shame brings out the worst in people, though, and many injured parties may demand that the duel be to the death so that the guilty can never again bring such shame upon anyone else.

The Betrayal Of A Lord Or Clan

     Those who would betray their own are without honor. In the Ice Kingdoms, coin or goods cannot heal the wounds caused by betrayal, nor can any single duel offer equal measure. Those who would betray their lords or their clans—and in this we mean a betrayal that caused true harm, such as helping raiders attack the village or the attempted assassination of the Jarl’s huskarl—has only one solution: banishment from the community and a declaration of outlawry against the guilty. The punishments such feckless individuals will receive from all those around them, once stripped of the protection of Thanelaw, will repay the debt they owe many times over, unlike a death which would bring them relief.

THANELAW AS A SOURCE FOR ADVENTURES

Using Thanelaw as a means of illustrating the differences between locations in your campaigns—what might be a crime deemed worthy of death in a small, struggling village might merit a simple repayment of wergild in a larger city—is well and good, and can help to make locations stand out in the minds of players. As the impetus for an evening’s adventure, however, Thanelaw can truly make for some memorable gameplay.

     There are many times, especially if you prefer a more sandbox play style, when a game master might dangle plot thread after plot thread at the players, waiting for them to seize on one and run with it. Applying Thanelaw to a situation can help to make a plot thread stand out in players’ minds, making things more interesting, and thus more likely for the players to pursue.

The Player Characters As Injured Parties

     Nothing will motivate a group of players like having some sort of wrong being done to their characters. Even PCs using a morality system that eschews law-abiding concepts will find themselves motivated to seek retribution for a crime when they are the injured party. While this can help thrust a particular character (usually the one with the greatest grievance) into the spotlight for a session, game masters are urged to exercise caution when using this method; turn the PCs into marks too often, and you run the risk of them thinking that everyone is out to get them, and possibly distancing themselves from fully engaging with the setting around them.

    Consider one of the following ideas to motivate your PCs into pursuing justice through Thanelaw:

     A personal object of great importance is stolen from the PC; will the character accept the wergild assigned by a thing as compensation? How far will the PCs track the thief in order to bring them back to face their sentence?

     Angered at the attention the Jarl is giving to one of the PCs, the huskarl spikes the PC’s drink, causing the PC to attack multiple guests of the Jarl in the Jarl’s own hall; what will the PC demand when the huskarl’s duplicity is discovered? A duel? Outlawry?

     The player characters have just negotiated the release of a gladiator slave they’ve taken a liking to after his next fight, paying an exorbitant sum for his freedom, only to find that the treacherous godi who owned the slave arranged for the man’s death in the game, and has turned the local bondi against the PCs. What will they do to see that Thanelaw is properly observed for the death of their friend, and can they trust the local thing to properly make a decision?

THE PLAYER CHARACTERS AS THE GUILTY PARTIES

     Rare is the group of player characters who do not ever act as though they are beyond the laws of the setting, even a set of laws as flexible and varied as Thanelaw. While you certainly want your players to feel that their characters are the protagonists of their adventures, and thus important to whatever part of the setting they are interacting with, it can be just as important to make certain they know that there are consequences for their actions. Since the punishments for violating Thanelaw can be as varied as the various customs and laws included in it, these can be an excellent springboard for new adventures for the player characters.

     Consider one of the following ideas to use punishments for violating Thanelaw to send your players’ characters on new adventures:

     After being found guilty of killing the son of an allied hauldr by mistake during battle, the local thing declares that an appropriate wergild is to take the body of the slain son to the clan’s burial grounds and make certain that the proper rites are performed to lay the dead to rest. Are the grounds empty, or has some creature or band of marauders made it their new home?

     The PCs were forced to steal horses from a local bondi to chase after fleeing bandits, and in the resulting fight, several of the horses were slain. Rather than simply demand for coin to pay for the horses—truly owned by the bondi’s master, who will no doubt punish the bondi for allowing the horses to be stolen—the bondi wants the PCs to track down a herd of wild horses and bring enough back to replace the dead horses they stole. The band of orcs who are also pursuing the herd won’t like the PCs’ interference though.

     The PCs stand accused of providing the Thane’s enemies with information about the strength of his theng, and have been sentenced to imprisonment until the Thane can deal with the aftermath of this betrayal and decide on a final punishment for the PCs. The PCs know that they are innocent; can they escape the Thane’s prison, discover the true traitor, and reveal the truth to the Thane before the traitor can sabotage the Thane’s defenses entirely?

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Thanelaw can be a means of illustrating the differences between different villages and cities in the Ice Kingdoms, emphasizing what the local populations value, and how they react to crimes against them. Properly applied, Thanelaw can help a game master to generate many reactive and proactive adventure threads for the player characters to pursue. By highlighting its presence in your games and the setting, Thanelaw can truly bring your adventures in the North to life.