Adlanthea is governed by layers of law rather than a single unified legal code.
Local magistrates, noble courts, city councils, military authorities, trade regulators, and the Ironwatch all possess some degree of legal power. Which authority matters most depends heavily on where a crime occurs, who committed it, and how wealthy the people involved happen to be.
In theory, the law applies to everyone.
In practice, Adlanthea has never been especially talented at pretending wealth does not matter.
The Ironwatch
The Ironwatch serves as Adlanthea’s most visible lawkeeping and military institution. Its officers patrol major cities, railways, industrial districts, trade routes, and important aether facilities.
Ordinary officers handle theft, assault, public disturbances, smuggling, and violent crime. Specialized divisions investigate magical offenses, rogue constructs, aether contamination, industrial sabotage, and supernatural threats.
Ironwatch authority is strongest in Ironveil and Crown-controlled districts, though most major cities maintain permanent stations.
They may detain suspects, confiscate dangerous magical devices, close contaminated sites, and impose emergency restrictions during major incidents.
Noble Authority
The Great Houses retain considerable legal privilege on lands they own.
House estates often employ private guards, investigators, and legal officers. Minor disputes occurring on noble property may be handled internally before the Ironwatch is ever involved.
A noble cannot legally murder someone without consequence.
Money, however, buys excellent lawyers.
Influence buys quieter witnesses.
Firearms
Firearms are legal throughout much of Adlanthea, though restrictions vary between cities.
Carrying a pistol openly is common among military officers, guards, travelers, professional gunslingers, and wealthy citizens. Concealed weapons may require permits in more heavily regulated districts.
Military-grade weapons, explosive ammunition, experimental firearms, and heavily modified aether weapons are more closely controlled.
Naturally, all of these things are available illegally somewhere in Crownspire.
Magic
Spellcasting itself is not illegal.
Using magic to harm, coerce, defraud, spy upon, or manipulate another person without lawful justification is.
Certain practices are heavily restricted, including dangerous experimentation with raw aether, uncontrolled construct creation, large-scale enchantments in populated areas, and magical interference with public infrastructure.
Necromancy is treated differently between regions. Mourningvale permits some tightly regulated forms of funerary and spiritual research that would provoke immediate investigation elsewhere.
Aether Crimes
Industrialization created an entirely new category of criminal law.
Illegal extraction, unlicensed refining, aether theft, sabotage of ley infrastructure, unsafe experimentation, and trafficking unstable magical materials can carry severe penalties.
The Brass Consortium employs private investigators specifically to protect patents and industrial secrets.
The Aetheric Collegium cares far more about stolen research.
The distinction has caused several spectacular arguments.
Smuggling
Smuggling is one of Adlanthea’s largest criminal industries.
Common contraband includes untaxed aether, restricted weapons, experimental technology, forged travel papers, stolen research, rare magical materials, and goods moved around noble tariffs.
The Free Skies publicly insist that they are not a criminal organization.
Some of their captains even manage to say this without laughing.
Dueling
Formal dueling remains legal among much of Adlanthean high society under strict conditions.
Participants must enter willingly, witnesses are required, and the chosen weapons and terms must be established beforehand. Most legal duels end at first blood, surrender, or incapacitation.
Lethal duels are heavily restricted.
Illegal street duels are simply called fighting.
Common Punishments
Minor offenses may result in fines, restitution, temporary imprisonment, or compulsory labor.
More serious crimes can lead to lengthy imprisonment, seizure of property, revocation of professional licenses, exile from certain cities, or forced labor sentences.
Execution exists but is generally reserved for murder, treason, mass casualty crimes, and particularly severe acts of magical or industrial terrorism.
The Unwritten Law
Adlanthean law has another layer that appears in no official code.
Reputation.
A ruined name can destroy a noble faster than imprisonment.
A merchant cut off from Consortium contracts may lose everything without ever entering a courtroom.
A scholar expelled from the Collegium may find every respectable laboratory suddenly closed to them.
And somewhere between the law, money, favors, blackmail, and loaded pistols exists an enormous gray market of people who solve problems institutions cannot.
Adlanthea calls them criminals when convenient.
It calls them useful when desperate.