The Laws of Azeroth

Ever wonder about how day to day laws work in Wow?
I do, because Im a nerd. But seriously, I got thinking about this when I made a law-oriented character on WrA. I worked out a deal with the crime guilds to use a quasi- English Common Law system for interactions as that seemed the most likely for the very European humans.
But what about Orcs? moving from a nomadic tribal lifestyle to having an industrialized nation with urban areas in one generation must have been nuts.
Or the Pandaren, the Shado-Pan seem to be the enforcement against major threats, but who would handle minor disputes? The local monastery would be my guess. But could be anything really.
Kaldrorei. With control of the state religion, and military/police being all female, there seems to be a definite matriarchy. But, how does that play out off screen, are men usually expected to be homemakers?
Do goblins have any laws of engagement? They seem to have a “do whatever you can get away with” attitude, but they also have some mob inferences, so do they have any loose laws?
Any other society/legal things you wonder about? Share them below.
I know we have no way of backing 99% of this up with lore, but I figure this would be a nice break from the latest Story Forum war over a certain undead elf who won’t be named.

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An interesting topic for sure and one I like to explore with my own characters.

Regarding Goblins- I don’t think they lack laws. They’re actually VERY big on making agreements and following them to the letter. They’re more or less a caricature of Americans, with free trade capitalism, materialism, slang, and ambition all turned up to 11 (and the faux New York/Jersey accents).

Laws should not be necessarily confused with morals, customs, or cultural pressure. For instance, in the US, it’s not against the law in many places for a woman to walk around topless. However, due to various reasons, this is not commonly practiced. Just an example. If anything, I think Goblin institutions probably have MORE laws than most other societies on Azeroth. They’re just very good at exploiting them to the letter rather than the rule- they’re just not based on any deep rooted cultural practices or morality.

It should also be noted that the Mafia is an example of ORGANIZED crime. It’s not just people breaking the law, but people breaking the law in accordance within a rather rigid hierarchy based on all kinds of rules, regulations and often in cooperation with local institutions of law/government. Part of the reason why it can be so hard to take down the heads of these organized crime organizations is because they do such a good job of exploiting the letter of the law to their advantage! In a lot of places, where a government collapse leaves people without a lot of basic services on which they’ve come to expect/rely, they can often be the only thing keeping the whole place from being an anarchic war zone…

Although they can become another repressive regime just as easily.

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Orcs still seem bound by tribal warrior-culture traditions: duels, to the death or otherwise, are still seen as acceptable means to determine leaders or settle disputes. So I think their laws would be similarly blunt: theft is dishonorable, so they kill or maim thieves. Assault and murder would most likely be justifiable in their culture a lot of the time, so long as the orc involved could argue that their honor had been impinged upon somehow. So a lot of their laws really just reflect where you fall in the “strength and honor” hierarchy. If you’re seen as trustworthy and strong, your brawls will be seen as justifiable and not worthy of any sort of punishment–those who diminish their honor with theft, treachery or weakness would have less leeway.

Worth noting that the trial of Garrosh Hellscream was conducted by the Pandaren, as the most victimized party, so we can infer that Pandaren have a sophisticated trial system and notions of “war crimes”. In Garry’s case Taran Zhu presided as the prosecutor, supporting your idea that the Shado-Pan serve as law enforcers after a fashion.

I doubt the role of “homemaker” exists at all for Kaldorei: as immortals who appear to have a pretty low birthrate the amount of time anyone, man or woman, spends rearing children is trivial compared to what they spend the rest of their millenia-long life doing. But at any rate I don’t think of Kaldorei as having a legal system so much as they just have religious taboos. Violate a taboo against fel magic or whatever and a scary lady in an owl helmet locks you underground for 10k years. Their law enforcers such as Maiev appear driven often by personal notions of justice rather than an impartial code or any sort, which makes me think Kaldorei law enforcement is fairly arbitrary, surrendered completely to the whims of the priestess or warden making the decision (see also: Tyrande killing a bunch of wardens because she decides its time to let Illidan free). Theocracy is a tough form of government I guess.

I’ll just say that I bet goblins have a complicated court system, full of loopholes, theatrical lawyers and raucous public viewing courtrooms where property disputes and stuff are settled. Probably minimal laws actually designed in the pursuit of justice.

As for races you didn’t bring up, we see the Dark Iron, uh, criminal justice system at work in Blackrock Depths, where invaders are sentenced to death by High Justice Grimstone in a combat arena called “the ring of law”. Pretty brutal justice, but it does imply that legal experts have some role in dwarven society, they’ve got a notion of laws, and you can’t just charge into their cities killing folk without the legal authorities having a “trial” for ya

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I agree that goblins absolutely have laws and may very well have a great many of them I also feel that the system is absolutely corrupt and whether or not any particular law would apply to a person would depend on how much money or power (read: money) that person has to apply to bribes and kickbacks.

Many goblins do not follow agreements to the letter, either, if they think they can get away with breaking those agreements (see, Venture Company) without losing money. They can and will lie, cheat and steal as a culture. Individuals vary.

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A little off topic, but I think it would have been interesting to see Shado-pan enforce laws against empowering Sha… Or negative emotions.

That would make things more interesting from a moral standpoint as they essentially regulate emotion.

BUT I think more minor disputes are probably taken care of by locals more often than an organized force. Things like theft or property damage or even an assault are probably prosecuted by the local villages it occurs in which has similar customs but probably varying punishments of offenses.

I love this post. :blue_heart: :peacock: :blue_heart:

Offtopic rambling about Roleplay I'm involved with.

My RP partner and I do a lot of RP with a lot of characers and themes. Usually there is some interplay. One of the ongoing themes we’ve been doing has involved a Thalassian crime family that has recently come out of dormancy and the interplay between them and a high ranking inquisitor (investigator/mind priest/lawman) and his group of wardens and inquisitors.

Much of it has been around since before the Mueller investigation, but this inquisitor warden branch is fairly independent much like the special counsel. They aren’t beat cops, they aren’t interested in petty thug crimes. They care a lot about ending things like trafficking rings and enslavement, experiments on unwilling subjects, cult busting, and other things that folks would consider gross and henious.

The organized crime side was being run as a skeleton, focusing on legitimate businesses and recruitment by the one living adult who survived the fall by being away—A priest and lawyer, brother to the late Don’s consigliere. The Don’s son and the consigliere’s son survived but were too young to take over the family. They were basically locked in a fortified safe shelter with food and water while everyone else tried to defend the compound from the scourge and died. The elder has been running businesses, recruiting, and grooming the next don and consigliere. The mafiosolings have a very slight inspiration from Michael Corleone and Tom Hagen from Mario Puzo’s The Godfather book.

Elder recruited a former strong man and muscle wizard from another family that was basically the last member and merged assets, the strong man lost his family and has taken these young mafiosolings as his new people to protect. Half of the assets of this family were stolen by someone else who changed their last name and weaseled fake records into the registry after the fall then claimed to be a heir. Those assets were recently recovered when one of that thief’s unwilling underlings killed him and took over, then merged in with the original family as an equal partner. Many of the businesses are actually legitimate lawful ones that also serve as fronts for other things.

The inquisitor turns a blind eye towards low crime. He sees value on having a mutually beneficial relationship with the growing crime organization.

The moral code of the family lines up pretty well with the issues that the Inquisitor IS actually concerned about. As you talked about in your post, their order, even though it’s not always lawful or good, they’re still the opposite of anarchy. There are things they won’t tolerate on their turf, so they help keep order in places the law won’t tread. They’re also a good source of information and allies in the ongoing conflict of busting up a secret underground society of magi and scientists who dabble in trafficking and unwilling experiments. They serve as the inquisitor’s eyes and ears in return for the blind eye on their less legal pursuits.

The inquisitor is chaotic good with a little lean into neutral. He has an ends justify the means approach, and while he enforces the law, he is more concerned with things being right in the end, even if the law needs to break and blind eyes need to be turned to achieve that ends.

The organized crime family is order, they have their own laws and selectively observe other laws to keep trouble away. Sometimes they do lawfully questionable things as a means to an end of gaining money and/or influence which they use for enforcing their own code for the benefit of their members and those under their protection.

It’s an interesting and fun little interplay but it’s also very thinky and niche. It’d probably bore most people to tears.

At the moment the muscle wizard, whose physical appearance is basically described as a bunch of memes (Absolutely unit. Oh lawd he comin’). He’s this big tall buff stalwart dude, a fairly wholesome gentle giant, also a mage/arcanist. When in Silvermoon he’s usually seen standing somewhere outside, arms crossed, watching over things as stray cats rub on his legs and birds land on him (maybe they think he’s a tree because he’s so tall and still). He’s basically a Disney princess and that’s fun.

The inquisitor is also fun, but that’s because he’s psychologically fascinating. He’s highly messed up and traumatized, and as a result he’s lost a lot of his connection to people. He basically IS his job, there’s not much of a person beyond that. The person he was is do dead and buried that it’s like thst person never existed. He has no connections to others. No friends, no family, no romantic interests. The lack of close connections means there’s no ond enemies of the state can use to control or blackmail him with. It’s part of why he’s in the job he’s in. He doesn’t really feel emotions like happiness, love, excitement, or impulses, he also doesn’t feel fear, anger, or sadness. This means he’s pretty dangerous, he is fearless and outright ruthless in the face of things that would upset or sway others. He has learned empathy and the right things to say to confort others even if he can’t feel things himself. One part of his character development is going to therapy to try and find those abilities to feel he numbed, switched off, and buried ages ago, and learning how to feel again and turn those feeling capabilities on and off like a switch.

Good times. Sorry for the ramble.

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