For the next few weeks, I’ll be talking about creating legal systems in your fantasy world. Even if your plots don’t center on mysteries or the like, no government can function without some sort of legal system. What constitutes a crime, what is the punishment for those convicted, and how is that determined can lead to many interesting cultures and stories.

The first aspect you need to determine is who metes out justice. It can’t make sense for the Lord of the Realm to preside over every petty crime, so who does? It could be a local magistrate with ties to the community. This can lead to the judge who acts on prejudices, can be overly zealous against outsiders, or may use their position of authority as a path to riches or other forms of power. It could be a traveling judge, which was typical in the frontiers days of the American West. These can lead to more fair trials, but could also mean no judge available for weeks at a time, someone with no ability to provide any sort of investigating, or someone who is so pressed for time that they can’t effectively hear any complicated cases.

How do judges get to their position? Judges could be elected, which makes deciding unpopular cases fairly difficult or impossible, but makes them accountable to those they preside over. Appointed judges can make decisions based on the points of law, but makes them beholden to whoever appointed them. They could inherit their positions, like other lords. It could be a council of elders or the city council. They could be the local or highest ranking priest. These have all been used both in the past and currently all over the world.

This is fantasy, though. Justice could be done by literal trial by fire or trial by combat, where the gods protect the innocent. They could be wizards who use magic to determine guilt or innocence. They may actually work, depending on how your setting works. Whether they work or not is actually irrelevant. All the matters is that people accept the method as legal and just.

Next week, I’ll be talking about how magic affects your legal system. This is the inspiration for the Blake Heira series, so this is a topic of particular passion for me.

Thanks for reading. I’ll see you next Sunday.