Duels
Honor duels are a tradition that gained popularity first in the Oathlands. They were soon embraced by the Lyceum city-states, and eventually became the preferred method of dispute resolution across the Compact. In general, the populace considers honor duels a win all around: minor matters are resolved quickly rather than festering into greater conflict, and the general populace gets a show to watch. The showmanship aspect of it is part of why duels are nearly always fought by champions from the Champions Guild, rather than the aggrieved parties themselves.
Every duel must have an explicit dispute to resolve, a single reason that can be pointed to, and something to demand an apology over. It does not have to be a /good/ reason, but it must be explicit; "I don't like you" is not sufficient grounds for an honor duel. It is also not an official honor duel if a challenge is not formally issued. For purposes of the game, this means it must be posted to the Challenges board to be official.
If the challenged party declines the duel, it is considered a tacit admission that their position was wrong and should offer apology, and the challenger's claim is indeed accurate; the challenging party can safely claim the victory and move on with life. Otherwise, the victorious side is considered to have won the dispute.
Duels can be fought using many different forms of combat: in the Oathlands, duels are sometimes fought as jousts, while others might be wrestling, or the ever-popular swordfight. Terms for a duel are worked out beforehand: what type of combat it will be, what weapons and armor are allowed (such as material, but not insisting someone use a weapon they have no familiarity with and trying to stack an unfair fight), and what the victory condition is. For your average insult or slight, a duel to first blood is proper. For practical purposes, 'first blood' will be a specific amount of damage selected ahead of time by the parties involved; the first combatant to reach or exceed that amount of damage is considered bloodied and loses.
To kill one's opponent during an honor duel is considered a serious, nigh-unrecoverable stain upon one's honor, since the practice was adopted specifically to prevent escalating bloodshed over perceived -- or actual -- slights.
In duels for honor or duels for exhibition, such as a Rite to Gloria, it is appropriate to keep in mind the fight is for story, and realize that IC, no one would greet complaints of "but my opponent had better boots/axe/higher skill" with anything but scorn.
Note that trial by combat, while a right accused criminals can claim, is governed by a different set of rules.
(see also help files for "slights", "champions", "heirloom weapons", and "trial by combat")
Entries
Question: Can I challenge an entire group, by using someone representative of a group, or say a house, organization, or other group has no honor or the like? Such as saying because of one person's actions they show an entire house has no honor?
Answer: No.
An honor duel should always be a specific offense that an apology would set to rights. That is the point of them. Someone causes a trivial offense, an apology is given, or someone refuses and effectively admits that they were out of line and were in the wrong, and aren't willing to fight to prove otherwise.
Saying a -group- has no honor is far, far more serious than it would seem, because the entire basis of the society is that when someone gives their word of honor, it can be relied upon no matter what. Saying a house is honorless would be grounds for war, and if it was a vassal doing so, it is likely they would be attainted and destroyed. That could lead to a case of house swords fighting to the death, for example. -That- is why honor duels are between individuals, and not groups.
Answer: In the lands of Valardin, many a perceived or intended slight to one's honor is settled through a duel. This is a time honored tradition, and a generally effective means of mediation. When one loses an Honor Duel, the complaint that sparked it is put away and forgotten. In recent history, the past 100 years or so, the Ladies of Valardin have taken to challenging one another to Honor Duels based on social maneuvering. This combat is settled almost entirely through the use of champions, even by women who have some skill in war, themselves. To that end, a company of 'knights' was started called The Champions. These are sellswords by any measure, though ostensibly they fight their duels in the interest of Honor and Glory. The women of Valardin have made something of a sport of arranging duels over squabbles and slights, some taking favored Champions and grooming them like patrons. The other Houses make light of this practice, insinuating the Ladies use their Champions for more than just defense of their honor. While this is likely not usually the case, no one can deny the Champions tend more towards the rakish duelist than the truly honorable knight.
Question: Are there hard and fast rules in Arx for the specifics of Dueling? i.e. Does the challenged get to set the circumstances of the duel such as the weapons to be used, if armor is allowed, etc. Also, who must declare their champion first?
Answer: It's traditional for the challenged party to pick the terms for any kind of honor duel and the particulars of the engagement, and then that would go back to the accusing party whether they want to withdraw the challenge or accusation. Similarly, if it's accusing someone of a crime, the challenged party is the one that decides if they want to settle trial by combat, they could just insist on a trial in their fealty or by a crown representative as the judge. The defender would declare their champion first typically, but that's just traditional politeness rather than a requirement. Politeness tends to be everything, since it's a matter of saving face after all as the point behind most duels.
Further, what should be remembered here is these are duels of honor to save public face. The population of Arx would be extremely unforgiving of someone trying to appear to honor it on the surface while trying set terms or conditions that would make it impossible. In other words, trying to arrange on a date that would be impossible would make someone look extremely bad, and so would trying to insist on conditions that would be humiliating for the participants involved. "We shall fight without armor to first blood" is appropriate, saying, "We will fight naked in an insult contest declaring how much we suck with each swing" would not be, and even proposing the latter would cause opprobrium. In short, honor duels are always dignified, since they are about defending the honor of those involved- never farcical.
Question: 1) How does a Noble go about ignoring a commoners challenge?
2) How does a Noble tell if ignoring a commoners challenge is harming them socially? Do they just gauge the White Journals, do they put in a +request to staff, do they just roll the dice and see if they take a prestige hit?
3) What commoners (as a rule of thumb) should the Nobility not ignore in challenges?
4) If there is a challenge about whether to include a note with an anonymous gift (for example) does the population take the outcome as a hint from the Gods or is it just lawl silly duel? Would the results of a duel ever change general public actions?
5) Could Inquisitors be Crownsworn or does it not matter?
6) Based on fealty Redrain isn't supposed to try and interfere with Sanna (for example) but should instead talk to Halfshav about meddling with Sanna. If that's accurate does the Crown actually have the entire Compact's fealty or just the fealty of the Great Houses?
7) Historically there have been featly wars see Northlands vs Oathlands. The Tyde Rebellion. Is it possible PC Houses to war amongst themselves? Is it not desired by staff?
8) Is House Thrax the only other House to have been a Crown holder besides Grayson?
Answer: 1) A commoner is beneath notice and would not be taken seriously until and unless a member of the peerage echoed their concerns, typically. It would just be ignored.
2) If someone of similar social rank to the challenged noble agrees that a commoner has a point, then it might be taken seriously. However, it is the view of the peerage that a commoner should NEVER challenge a noble as a criticism of their ability to rule, because a commoner does not have sufficient understanding of nobility to make that criticism, and pretending they do is trying to place themselves on the same level of their social betters. In other words, a noble committing a trivial offense is valid if another noble agrees the commoner has a point that a noble acted boorishly or beneath their dignity. A commoner saying that noble doesn't deserve to rule is very, very dangerous for the commoner and socially unacceptable.
3) Only those treated as members of the peerage due to their station, which is only the faith. Unless a commoner is questioning a noble's judgment as a ruler, leader, general, or their social better. Challenges may be made over slights if a noble supports them, but never over their fitness for the peerage.
4) Generally, most in Arvum shy away from honor duels as the same thing as Trial by Combat and very serious duels to the death. For showy honor duels, they tend to appreciate the ability to entertain, as long as it doesn't mock the institution.
5) Doesn't matter.
6) Just the great houses and crownsworn, though most say 'ultimate fealty' to the crown, even if their direct vows are always to the liege. A sanna is sworn to halfshav who is sworn to redrain who is sworn to the crown.
7) Sure but I'd like for wars to be coded in dominion before people use my time to do that.
8) Nah there was a barrack emperors style period during Crownbreakers I'll write about, but these are historical footnotes.
Question: It's generally accepted that it's a bit gauche for people not to hire Champions to represent them in honor duels in lieu of having a non-Champion represent them or just representing themselves. However, are there exceptions to this? The question was most specifically about whether it would be gauche in the same way for a knight to represent themselves in an honor duel if challenged.
Answer: So this is a little sticky. Knights are experienced soldiers, but more than that, they are bastions of honor, and honor is very important to the Compact. In general, if a Knight was challenged to a duel over something minor, they would just apologize for the offense given, or the misunderstanding, because a Knight's honor can be besmirched by escalating petty squabbles. In VERY RARE cases where a Knight's actual honor had been insulted, such as someone in a white journal saying they murdered babies with impunity, or accusing them of betraying their lieges, it would be acceptable to fight a duel on their own behalf, but that's a very dangerous gambit - if the Knight loses, it means they are on the wrong end of the conflict, and people will whisper it's true. Their honor is doubly in doubt. Again, for Knights specifically it's much more common for them to defuse the situation and deal with the challenge that way - by getting it rescinded. Otherwise, if it was a petty thing that the challenger refused to put aside, they would hire a Champion in order to signal that the duel is not of much concern to them, and their Knightly honor is thus not truly on the line.
Answer: "Call for champions and be done with it" is a phrase often used in Arvum - meaning to resolve any petty or minor dispute, to put some small injury to bed and allow everyone to move on with their lives. It derives from a much more literal practice popular among the great houses.
While technically any noble house could appeal to their lieges and all the way up to the crown for any dispute, in practice very minor conflicts such as social slights, insults, or omissions are beneath the notice of the great lords that run houses. This is not, however, to say they are not dangerous. More than one war has started over a minor incident that led to serious animosity that led to someone dead that then led to a war (such as House Redrain's 'Alespill War'), but the Peerage of the Compact places a great deal of importance on resolving petty slights before they get out of hand. This in turn leads to the popularity of champions, particularly those for hire, representing nobles in minor incidents and settling an issue.
Somewhat counter to the intuition of those unfamiliar with the practice, most nobles in these minor incidents rarely represent themselves (though some warriors insist on doing so), simply because having anyone stand willingly to champion a noble's complaint and demand satisfaction is at least a symbolic representation that at least one other person believes the complaint has merit and is willing to fight to prove it, even if a great number of champions are just paid to do so. Similarly, if a demand for satisfaction goes unanswered, the assumption by the peers of the realm is that no one, not even the accused, saw fit to dispute the accusation, and it must have a ring of truth to it. Serious matters are, of course, usually brought for resolution between the liege lords of those involved, or in the most serious of cases, before a magistrate of the crown.
But for anything else, and for the minor and trivial, they call for champions and are done with it. In practice, this means that kerfuffles between nobles are often resolved by one party or the other naming a Champion and requesting an honor duel (often to first wound, see help duel). If Princess Pants is mad at Duke Dick for holding the door for four courtiers and then letting it slam in her face, she can name a Champion and inform him of his duty to answer the slight. Conversely, if Princess Pants takes her anger out in other ways, such as drawing in members of her family to make trouble for Duke Dick's family, Duke Dick would probably name a Champion and challenge her.
In Arx, this is how things are handled. It keeps the Champions busy, and it keeps minor scuffles that happen when you group so many people together from turning into drama explosions.