In-Depth Look: Judges
HOMELAND
A greasy floppy hat made of cowhide, the endless fucking dust covering the brim like a red mist. In the shadows below, a haggard skull face grins, the eyes hidden behind dark glasses in a round frame. The Judge adjusts his hat with his thumb and pats his mare’s neck reassuringly. The saddle creaks, as does the long leather duster falling from the man’s shoulders in a stiff line, lying in folds on the horse’s back. A hammer with a long handle hangs in a loop at the saddle: the head’s metal is dull and encrusted with dirt.
The mare’s hooves hit the cobblestones hard and loud, each stone is an island amid a sea of red dust. The Judge looks around. The houses built from debris are leaning, forming a wall against the dust storms. Waxed blankets fill the windows, hiding their interior from his view. He doesn’t like that. But this is Justitian, the heart of the civilized world, the city of law, the iron fist in the wasteland. If there is safety to be found anywhere, it’s here.
A cart filled with baskets full of rusty iron scrap rumbles across the pavement in front of him. The Judge straightens himself in the saddle, wanting to see who pulls the cart, wanting to make the driver go faster. A bulky body strapped into a harness pulls the cart. The gray hair hangs matted from his skull and swings back and forth with every step: a Scrapper from Tech-Central. The Judge reins in his horse. There’s no sense in pushing, he won’t be getting past soon. Absentmindedly he opens the sealed flap of his hip bag and pulls out a tattered book. His face relaxes when he opens it and reads the first lines. This is the Codex, the book that lends meaning to his life, sentences full of justice and wisdom. He knows it by heart. Yet still he keeps reading it, and feels closer to the First Judge by doing so.
The cart turns at a junction, rumbling towards the Chroniclers’ Alcove. The Judge spits out a gob of dusty spittle and goads the mare into an easy trot, turning onto a busy street humming with activity, parting the masses with harsh gestures and finally reaching the broad Judgement Alley. Hundreds of mounted Judges are already waiting there: they have shouldered their hammers and shielded their mouths and noses against the dust with scarves. Their faces are shadowed by the brims of their hats, muskets and rifles are attached to the saddles. Horses snort, prancing nervously, leather creaks, and bridles jingle. Ah, the rumors must be true. The Cockroaches have invaded the ruins again.
The assembled Judges nod to the newcomer and greet him with their hammers. This is a good day for the Codex. He urges on his mare, joins them, pulls out his Judgement hammer and makes it clang through the wall of shafts and iron.
Today, they are going to war.
THE FIRST JUDGE
In the years after the Eshaton, people were hard-hearted and brutal. They attacked each other over handfuls of corn, killing and looting. Some claimed their circumstances were to blame. Centuries of ethical and moral development were gone with the wind.
Soon, the first gangs appeared. They promised safety as long as they were stronger and fiercer than their competitors. The individual was a helpless victim of their violence.
One man led the people back to the path of righteousness. He called himself “the Judge”. He first appeared in 2381 in a small, fortified village close to the ruins of Bochum. There he apprehended a Clanner who had been wounded and left behind after a raid. He recited his crimes, theft being the smallest among them, and led him to the executioner’s block, an upturned iron bucket. The Judge fixed the delinquent’s head to the tin with his foot and smashed his head with one blow of his sledgehammer. There was no axe to be found in the village.
The onlookers were shocked. Yes, they had savored the captive’s fear of death after the suffering he had brought upon the village. But did it have to be so brutal? The Judge remained impassive. He adjusted his broadrimmed floppy hat, looked down the greasy hem of his cowhide coat spattered with blood, brain matter, and pieces of bone, and asked for a bowl of water. The hammer he offered back to the farmer who had lent it to him, but the man only shook his head.
From now on, the villagers saw the Judge more often. He journeyed from settlement to settlement. With the patience of a snake waiting for its prey he mediated altercations between villagers and took on the work he was known and feared for: he judged. Whenever he arrived the villagers already awaited him with prisoners and told him about their crimes. His judgments were merciless, but just, his executions brutal and grim. His trademark floppy hat, the glasses, the coat and hammer were all soon known throughout West Borca. He was a figure of law, order, and deterrence.
He became a living legend.
The Judge cut a bloody swath through the landscape of Clans and outlaws. They resisted. They ambushed him, attacked him with two, three and finally four people. Hundreds of times the Judge went down, dragged from his horse, shot and kicked. But he was cunning and tough, kept getting up again, smashed stupidly gawking faces with his hammer, broke shins and rammed the heft into innards and eyes. He always won. His aura of righteous revenge finally started attracting young, enthusiastic people. At first they nourished him, warned him, and brought him information. In the end, they joined him, followed him and protected him on his crusade against all the scum.
STONE HEADS
It is a tradition amongst the Judges to immure a Supreme Judge’s mortal remains together with the Codex he wrote in a giant stone head built taller than a man.
23 of these monuments are lined up along the Judgement Alley in Justitian, looking gravely down onto a new generation of Judges.
GUARDIANS OF ORDER
Soon, he had over 100 followers. They spread his word all over Borca: touting war coat, hat and hammer to honor his deeds and his wisdom. They hunted outlaws and brought them to heel. The villagers honored the new Judges, gave them food and offered them a place in the community. Some accepted, others remembered the First Judge’s eternal wanderings and acted accordingly.
No one noticed the disappearance of the First Judge. With their scarves in front of nose and mouth, the floppy hats and the glasses it was nearly impossible to discern one Judge from the other. Their mentor could have moved amongst them unnoticed. But his disciples wondered what new deeds the old one had done, where he might be and how he might feel. No one knew the answers. Only after months did the Judges realize that their founder was not amongst them anymore. They realized they didn’t need him to continue his work.
THE TESTAMENT
The night of December 15th, 2409 was cold, a blizzard scoured the city of Exalt. Two Judges waited in the central plaza, their collars upturned, rubbing their hands. A hooded figure approached. Chronicler Metatag, as agreed. The Chronicler nodded to the two men and gave them a package wrapped in oiled cloth. Through the feedback of his amp, he shouted “The Testament!” and disappeared again in the swirling snow without turning back.
The two Judges held in their hands the First One’s travel diary, holding his collected experiences, epigrams and pages full of paragraphs. The knowledge of a holy life and the testament to his successors, collected in tiny, scratchy handwriting on greasy pages. In the years to come, the book would unite the Judges and be the foundation they erected a building of faith and law upon.
Soon, every Judge had a copy of the Codex and acted according to it when separating the culprits from the victims. Others analyzed the book, interpreting and completing the countless fragmentary sequences. Practitioners and theorists arose. But for the time being, they fought for the First Judge’s cause side by side.
JUSTITIAN - THE RIGHTEOUS FIST
Again, it was the Chroniclers who started it all. They offered a home right next to their Central Cluster to two Judges and some Clans of the northern wasteland they considered benevolent and civilized. Of course, they had second thoughts. The Judges’ reputed ability to put up a fight should be enough to keep lawless rabble away.
They all accepted, fortified the wells that the Chroniclers had kept hidden so far and expanded the old buildings. But not all of them were happy. To the Advocates, as the theorists were called now, the stone holds offered everything they needed for their studies of texts and their proliferation. To the old-fashioned Judges who wanted to beat the word of law into the faces of fat criminals with an iron fist, the Protectors, the nascent city was a corset hindering their movement. They made the best of it, even if they disliked the centralization.
The city prospered and grew and was called Justitian, in honor of Justitia, the goddess of justice – another Chronicler idea. They were part of everything, crept into meetings and counseled without being asked. Due to their influence, one Judge arose and made a bid for power. Justus I was the first in the long tradition of Supreme Judges of Justitian. He elevated his own version of the Testament to a universally valid law and called it “the Codex”. He ordered the Advocates to make laws and asked the Protectors to apply them in the field. To each his own. Internal strife he countered with a hierarchy making clear who was right in the end. From now on, lesser and higher Judges rode through the city, and Vagrants and City Judges guarded the gates. The groundwork was laid. Now it was time to build a monument upon it.
Years later, the Judges ruled over the majority of West Borca. Settlements and farms joined the Justitian Protectorate. Give up independence for safety, maybe even leadership. After decades of fighting for survival, it was an easy choice for most people.
THE CODEX
Every Supreme Judge enters into office with his own Codex. Time moves on, and the outlaws’ imagination seems endless. Beyond the Testament’s clear, fundamental rules, there is a need for clarification which has often caused aggravation in recent years. The text is fairly close to the people, it is something like a contract between the inhabitants of Justitian and the Judges. At least this is how it was in the beginning. For the Codex evolves, amended by the Advocates’ interpretations. The longer a Supreme Judge is in office, the more complex and tight the web of paragraphs becomes. Archot is the oldest of them all. He has been Supreme Judge for more than 20 years, and his Codex has become a bloated monster that no one can control anymore.
Basic commandments like “Thou shalt not kill” and “Thou shalt not steal” form the smallest, but oldest part of the Codex. The subsidiary paragraphs list pages and pages of exceptions and measures of punishment. Then come the rules concerning strife of any kind, taken from an enormous measure of precedence cases: adultery, fraud, imposture, malpractice and much more – every eventuality is covered by paragraphs. The outside world clauses describe procedure outside the city in great detail, defining the rights and dues of Judges and people foreign to the Protectorate.
While the Advocates devise new laws in their palaces and keep an army of scribes occupied with a flood of amendments to the Codex, the Protectors out in the streets of Justitian face a dark future. Only a few older ones remember the times when the handy booklet wrapped in black leather gave them direction, but did not force them to rush down the slope like a train on brakeless tracks. There is no room for interpretation anymore. Everything that could be interpreted has been interpreted and set in stone. The law has become a burden.
TWO CAMPS
When people speak of the Judges, they usually think of the Protectors. They are the ones out fighting the outlaws in the field and aid and counsel the populace and settle differences. In spite of their supremacy dictated from above, most of them remain peers to the people.
The Advocates have formed their own faction apart from the Protectors. It is influential and ancient, a continuous thorn in the Protectors’ side.
The Advocates recruit the Judges from those who are too weak for the physical exertion, so the Protectors’ claim. In fact, the Advocates value education and intelligence higher than the ability to strike people down with a hammer. They want to define the evil in people, find it and tie it down with laws. They see themselves as educators, not as warriors.
PROTECTORS: HAMMER
Those who have a hard time dragging their bellies through the ruins shouldn’t even bother applying with the Protectors. The tribunal is best convinced by physical endurance, a sharp eye when hitting targets, and brute force. For completeness’ sake, every applicant has to answer questions concerning the Codex, and then he may head for Judgement Hall. In front of a Senate representative, the applicants swear an oath of truth to the Codex and of fulfilling the duty unto death, then they step up to an executioner’s block covered in iron sheets, raise their hammer and smash it down onto the block. That seals their new fate.
THE SENATES
Two Senates with eight High Judges each are answerable to the Supreme Judge. Every Senate represents one of the factions and is manned by the Protectors’ and the Advocates’ hardliners, respectively. They discuss important decisions for the Cult and vote on them. The Protectors traditionally guard and expand the Protectorate, while the Advocates have managed to gain control over the city. But the political developments in the Protectorate and beyond can rarely be limited to only one of these groups. All too often, their paths cross, which leads to verbal battles and an increase in demand for informers. Only the Supreme Judge can stop the squabbling then. However, Archot loves those irate discussions, for they inspire his mind.
JUDGES' LINGO
The founder’s Testament was riddled with Latin and Greek phrases and epigrams. Much of it remained incomprehensible for a long time, those ancient languages were too foreign. Although the text has been completely deciphered by now and the Cult has excellent experts on linguistics, the Judges never felt compelled to make Latin their official language. Bringing the law to the people was challenging enough: the people have to understand the laws to accept the Codex, so the Protectors thought. The Advocates, on the other hand, see their position threatened. If the people understand and internalize the laws, what would they need the Judges for? This conflict between Protectors and Advocates is as old as the Cult itself and has always been a subject of discussion in Justitian’s Senates. So far, the Senates have been canceling each other out: traditionally, the Supreme Judge is the one to bring about a decision by voting.
Some Latin words have managed to wiggle their way into the Judges’ language: for example, the Supreme Judge is often called “Primus inter pares”, first among peers. The trial is being held “Coram publico”, in public, the defendants are called into the stand with the phrase “Audiatur et altera pars!” (The other side shall be heard too!), and Protectors get in the right mood for the coming battle with “Per Aspera ad Astra” (through hardships, to the stars). Many a Judge finishes his final sentence with “Punctum!” (That’s it!) or starts a death sentence with “Mors certa, hora incerta.” (Death is certain, its hour is uncertain), and almost every second sentence of the opinion of the court can be spiced up by a “De iure” (by right).
Some Judges would feel naked if they didn’t wear this garb of unintelligible phrases. Others completely refrain from using the Latin clichés. As far as the Cult is concerned, that is up to the Judges alone.
JURYMEN
The Protectorate thrives and grows quicker than the number of its Judges. The front line has become over expanded, but unpunished crimes would make the people rise up. The Judges thus mend the holes with Jurymen. Mostly, they choose enclave leaders or merchants with a good reputation, less often decorated veterans who are schooled as Jurymen in a fast-track procedure. They can pass Judgements in the absence of Judges and arrest culprits until the Judge can review their case. If a culprit accepts the temporary Judgment, it becomes valid and irreversible. Lesser punishments like the marking of a thief or liar are implemented at once by a Juryman or his representative. In more severe cases, a Protector must be consulted.
AN EYE FOR AN EYE
The Judges bring law to the wasteland, and just like a strict father teaches the rules of life to his unruly kids by beating them, the Judges punish all who act against the Codex’s teachings. Punishment is not an end in itself, but a tool to frighten the masses and lead them on the path to purity, so the First Judge writes in his journal.
Thus, the Judges have developed many forms of reproof, castigation, and harsh punishments for every crime during the long years of their existence. They know no imprisonment, though. Justitian was not willing to shoulder the cost for arresting and feeding a prisoner for days or even months.
The Judges’ penal system also needs to take into account that the people in the Protectorate are practically anonymous. No one has ever heard of passports or birth certificates. If you move house within Justitian, you can start a new life as a stranger in the new neighborhood. The Judges counteracted this by making punishments visible. For example, a thief’s hands and forearms are dyed blue using a stinking solution. The same color is used to mark the lips of liars and frauds. Depending on the mixture, this color takes weeks or months to fade. The culprits then get rid of the social anathema and get a second chance. Repeat offenders who are still marked are treated more harshly by the Judges and soon feel the iron fist of Justitian’s justice. Thieves have one knuckle on each hand smashed, frauds get their tongue split with a glowing blade. They should have taken the admonition to heart.
Killers and rapists do not get a second chance. Their forehead is branded using a Judgment iron, and they are banned from the Protectorate. Should they return to be arrested, the Judges leave it to the victims or their relatives to choose the punishment. Popular forms of punishment are smashing a limb with the Judgment hammer or tearing it out using the Judge’s horse. In especially severe cases, there is a death sentence and the culprit is killed by a heavy blow to the head.
Many culprits, especially those guilty of lesser crimes, get to choose. Either pay an indemnification to their victims or spend a few days in Justitian’s labor camps. Additionally, their faces are marked with red color, the henna. In the following days, they work for the city’s benefit, repair streets, build houses, shovel dirt from the Defiler Streets, fight the dust with their spades, and work on the great Colossus, Chairman Archot’s legacy. If one of them flees and gets caught, he must expect severe repercussions. If the Judges showed mercy, it would be considered weakness. That is something they cannot allow if they want to keep controlling their army of forced laborers. They will treat him like a felon. Only when the henna fades away after two or three weeks may the prisoner go unmolested. A few even stay. Two meals a day are more than they could manage in their normal lives.
The Judges’ punishments shape Justitian’s culture. A deal is always sealed by a handshake, before which merchant and customer take off their gloves or wrappings, making sure that the other has no marked skin before getting down to business. Those who wear their gloves on a market in Justitian must expect to be eyed warily. “Show me your hands” is a familiar saying. The same is true for the face. It is considered impolite to hide your face under scarf or breathing mask while in conversation. Why would you do that if not to hide the fact that you are a liar or a fraud? Showing your face is considered tantamount to honesty. Thus, strangers who do not know Justitian’s ways often have a hard time getting started in the Protectorate.
ADVOCATES: CODEX
The drills in the dust, the shouting when fighting with the hammers and the eternal din from the Protectors’ sealing block – all this is a permanent nuisance to the Advocates. They too must carry the hammer, but actually prefer the musket. It’s loud, too, but at least it does not put them on the same level as the savages in the wasteland.
The physical trials to be accepted into the Advocates’ ranks are accordingly lax. A few shots from the rifle, jumping for cover, yes, that’ll do. But they know no leniency concerning the knowledge about the Codex. For hours, the applicant’s knowledge of the paragraphs and laws is checked in a staccato-like cross-examination. Only those who know the Codex by heart and utter the correct phrases without thinking are not found wanting in front of the Advocates’ tribunal.
But that’s not all. The last trial is held in the Senate Hall. Extras step up and describe fictional problems, others play the roles of culprits, victims and witnesses. The applicant walks amongst the extras, questioning them and forming an opinion. If his Judgement satisfies the tribunal, he’s almost there. In front of the tribunal, the Judge swears an oath on the Codex and on Justitian, just like the Protectors when they are sworn in. But he will not need his hammer here. The tribunal Judges shake hands with him and congratulate him. It’s a small gesture with huge meaning. Welcome to the Advocates.
ARCHOT'S OBSESSION
The first 20 years of Archot’s time in office were one huge blur of magnificence. At least, this is what the historians will write. Without using force, his Judges annexed dozens of the villages and erected their Judgement stones all over Borca. The Clans died in the hail of lead from the Judges’ muskets. The Cockroach Clan, savage and bestial as it was, crawled back between the crevices, never to be seen again. The smugglers’ nest called Ignatz was razed in a concerted punitive expedition together with the Preservists. The Judges advanced on all fronts, smashing and rebuilding. Archot himself knew of his magnificence and consciously hid under an insufficient layer of false humility.
If the rumors in the Senate can be believed, Archot feared nothing more than to be forgotten after his death. According to tradition, a stone head would be erected for him next to the Judgement Alley – and thus, he would just be one of a long line of Supreme Judges. It is said he couldn’t stand this notion – and so, it began. He gathered his Advocates and issued a new edict. For his fire to inspire those who came after him, a mausoleum that did his achievements justice should be built for him. The prisoners in the boot camps had a new job. They struggled in the ruins, harvested stones, and dragged them to Justitian’s Uptown. They piled them up at the end of the Judgement Alley: layer by layer, a stone torso formed, passing from a sinewy neck to the chin, tapering at the shoulders.
The Colossus towered 30 feet high when a Jehammedan assassin blew it up.
More than just a pile of stones were destroyed that day: Archot’s soul crumbled. Someone had to pay. There were witnesses to the attack. A Chronicler Sensorium registered the Hagari shortly before the detonation. The overseers at the Colossus had also seen a female Jehammedan. Archot got word of these facts less than 30 minutes after the attack. He also knew that the Osmani had sent an Isaaki, one of their blessed children, to Justitian. Archot stood on the steps of Judgement Hall in his flowing robes, his white hair in disarray and his eyes dark with sadness and hard with fury. “Hang him!”
Streamers spread out, trying to warn the Jehammedan community, but they did not reach them. Interface lag. In the end, Rutgar’s Black Judges found the Isaaki, Gideon, and riddled him with 12 rounds of lead. His horse carried him on for more than 50 steps before the corpse slid from the saddle and hit the pavement.
Archot decided to hang the Isaaki on a jib a on the Uptown wall. Fodder for the crows and, of course, a sign of his disapproval.
An era of strength ended, and Archot’s madness would define the next.
RETREAT
The Jehammedan Quarter survived, mainly due to the Iconide Baruch who demanded the family council turn their backs on Osman. He said that Osman had declared a holy war in whose fires they would all burn to ashes. But there is still tension in the air. Archot does not trust anyone anymore.
The Colossus had been a symbol for Justitian’s omnipotence. When it fell, doubts rose – and so did the Clans. Since then, they have dared to attack merchants and have begun fortifying their domain in the ruins. The Judges are being pushed back into the city. The first Protectorate settlements are lost.
Then news of the horde’s attack on Praha spread. In Judgement Hall, the reaction is indifference. Why do we care who bashes whose heads beyond the Reaper’s Blow? But the Clans care. If Praha can fall, so can Justitian. The Clans gather courage, show aggression towards the Judges. Peoples presumed dead rise from the ruins. The Cockroach Clan is back, and with it all of the scum that once had been pushed to the borders of the Protectorate.
Justitian’s fateful years have begun.
JUDGEMENT HALL
At the center of Justitian, so close to the Central Cluster that the din of the creaking speakers and feedbacks is still audible, are the Cult’s headquarters: Judgement Hall. The three main entrances with their zigzag friezes cut deep into its front, which open out onto the Judgement Alley. Between them, two colossal bronze statues in Judges’ robes tower eight meters high: one is leaning on a hammer, the other presses a dusty image of the Codex to its chest. Their cool gaze rests on the ruin of the Colossus at the end of the Avenue. Judgement Hall is rectangular,, 80 m long and 50 m wide, a fortress with thick walls and pillars carrying the weight of the inner dome. High, arched windows with artistic glass paintings symbolizing the Judges’ virtues on one side and the outlaws’ deadly sins on the other break up the buildings angular form. The roof is 14 m high, a broad battlement with low bunker towers on all four corners surrounding the whole building. Thick-bellied cannons and mortar mounts stare down onto visitors grimly from above. Behind them, the Protectors patrol.
A one-story concrete building covered in ashlar from pre-Eshaton times clings to the shadowy north flank. Here, the Judges’ horses are stabled. It is said they are better off than some of Justitian’s citizens. In Judgement Hall, actually consisting of several vaults, there is a sacral mood. The stained-glass windows break the light into a display of blue, red, and green colored panes. Judges and Chroniclers walk in and out of here all the time: the most important offices can be found in the south wing. The center opens up onto an atrium surrounded by a cloister. Here, Protectors and Advocates meet for friendly discussions. In the main hall, the Supreme Judge resides. In the adjoining side wings, the Senates meet.
THE BARRACKS
At strategic points in Justitian, the Judges have erected barracks. They are the home of the Protectors who eat, sleep and train here. They rest their horses for the night in the adjoining stables.
The number of Judges stationed here depends on the importance and location of the barracks, ranging from 10 to 100. The largest facilities have several sleeping halls, subterranean arsenals, large training grounds and bunkerlike fortifications. They all are surrounded by barbed wire or regular fences.
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