How about a brief aside about law enforcement in the Coryani Empire?
I was listening to a lecture on the subject of Criminal activity in Ancient Rome (focusing mostly on the Republic from examples, but a lot about the Imperial period too), and once again I had the thought to compare it to the familiar nation of Coryan. The more I listen to the lecture, the more I see incongruities to our own almost-Roman-like nation in the Arcanis universe, but also a few interesting things which thus far have not been well explained in adventures or sourcebooks. I don't think I'm alone in desperately wanting a "Historica Geographica: Coryani Empire" to enter the queue to complement existing documents like the Theocracy of Canceri, Ssethregore, and forthcoming Blessed Lands book, but until we get such a definitive document we are left to ponder and guess.
So guess I shall!
First off, I will admit that I am basing some of this supposition off one of my own adventures (specifically, "Purity, Fraternity, Justice"). When I was writing that adventure Henry and I sparred somewhat to fit my own views of how the Coryani Judiciary would work vs. what he had in mind on the subject. What ended up was (of course) far closer to his view, but I think I added my own flavour to the system for a little bit of fluff. This post will delve more into the "what I think", which I fully understand may be entirely antithetical to what Henry wishes.
In the early Roman Empire period, as well as that of the Civil War-era Roman Republic, justice in Rome was both very simple, and also almost mindbogglingly difficult for us to get our minds around. During this period there was no police force (or City Watch), there were no Lawyers, there were few defined legal codes (the prominent being the Twelve Tables) compared to our own voluminous legal tomes, and there were no official courts as we know them. If you were accused of committing a crime, you were not innocent until presumed guilty, and in many cases you were not incarcerated until convicted. This means that a great many accused criminals fled the city rather than face justice (or even their trials).
Roman law as we know it started at the beginning of the Republic with their 12 Tables Law Code, which was based on the Athenian Laws of Solon. No copies of these 12 legal tomes survive, so we are not entirely certain about what they exactly dealt with, but modern scholars believe that they mostly dealt with civil procedure and private law. The Athenian system that it was based on utilized jury trials for the accused (drawn up from all the Citizens of Athens, meaning the enfranchised men with Athenian citizenship) who decided their fate via democratic vote. The Roman system first started showing professional jurists (Magistrates, and especially Praetors) around 300 BCE, taking over that role from individuals such as priests. These magistrates and praetors made decisions on legal issues, and these decisions typically acted as the basis for further decisions from their successors. Eventually, these jurists began acting as both judge as well as advisor in the way a Lawyer may today, though these praetors did not advise the plaintiff or defendant in court. For what we believe is the stereotypical role of a lawyer today was handled either by the party involved with the case (in many cases, the defendant being tried by the people) who would defend themselves or via someone who would basically be a speech-writer/giver. Many philosophers would use rhetoric in their own defence and in the defence of those who hired them to help sway the jurists and a jury away from a guilty verdict.
Now, moving on to Coryan, we see a few notable differences. To start with, all the major cities (and many of the smaller towns!) seem to operate at least a volunteer Watch. These are civic-minded individuals and/or individuals employed by the local government to keep law and order. These groups did not exist in Roman times (or almost any other ancient society), and represent a much more modern view of law enforcement which has coloured fantasy writers for decades. In Roman times the role of the police was handled by the slaves of rich individuals who would dispense justice for themselves. The Romans, especially in the Civil War era of the Republic, operated almost as a mafia-type system, with wealthy patrician patrons protecting their clients using their own resources. In fact, there came a time in the era of Julius Caesar where crime was used as a form of political terrorism, but since Rome didn't have a 'city guard' (there were laws banning soldiers from entering the city in fact) the city degenerated into what we would now call gang warfare. Later, the Praetorian Guard was present within Rome during the Empire, but these were agents of the Emperor for the Emperor, not the people.
Coryan, on the other hand, does not have laws or traditions restricting the presence of troops in the capital. There is the Legion of Vigilance stationed in the Imperial Palace itself, and there is a large City Watch at least vaguely similar to the Gold Cloaks of Kings Landing in the works of George R.R. Martin. These city watchmen are outfitted as Coryani auxiliaries or even legionnaires, and serve a number of purposes. The most obvious of these are being a militia force to defend the city in case of attack, but from various adventures they seem to be far more focused on the enforcement of laws, the punishment of criminals, and the investigation of crimes. This last one is especially unique, as in ancient cultures in our world it was almost impossible to truly investigate crimes as it was almost entirely a 'he said, she said' argument. This is less noticable in Arcanis, however, due to the existance of dozens of investigative techniques, many of them magical. Considering the greater historical record and the 'developed' nature of human culture, however, finding a more advanced and developed form of law enforcement makes sense. After all, in our world all these cultures were trying out brand new systems and techniques, or building off rumors or half-understood documents of previous civilizations. In Arcanis, the Coryani legal system would have thousands of years of developed, possibly God-given (literally), laws and procedures to produce what we would call a fully formed system.
Moving away from simple policing, we know that like Rome, Coryan maintains a secular legal system of magistrates to try cases. Unlike Rome, these magistrates are not simply individuals who use a rough guide of common laws to render individual decisions, but part of a large bureaucracy sponsored by the government. These law courts maintain (compared to Rome) meticulous records of crimes and uphold common law to a far more narrow degree. What we do not know (as far as I can recall) is if the Coryani system utilizes jurors or lawyers by our understanding of the terms. Are all trials only heard by a magistrate, and that individual both judges and sentences you?
Also, while Rome started off its jurists as being priests, Coryan (and other human nations) have the rather touchy subject of their own strong divine tradition even to this day. While the law courts are secular, the Empire recognizes (once again) the worship of Nier, the Lord Justicar of the Gods. Followers of Nier crave justice, and many (such as the Holy Judges of Nier) even go so far to act as roving vigilantes. Further complicating things, after the banning of Nierite Worship in the 300's I.C., many of the roles previously filled by Nierites (such as the Inquisition) were filled by Illiirites (God of Truth) and Sarishans (God of Oaths), which add further religious forces which appear at odds with the secular bureaucracy of the Imperial Courts. How is this divide reconciled?
One way to reconcile this is that while Magistrates are secular officials, they receive their training from Nierite, Illiirite, or Sarishan priests/initiates. This is similar to what evolved with the magistrates and praetors in Rome, just changing the dynamic to a more religious one. This seems reasonable to me as Coryan (and all human, Arcanis nations) are a lot more religious than the Romans are, and that the religion in Coryan is a separate body from the state. In Rome, remember, the position of High Priest is actually an elected or appointed one, and that Roman (and Greek) Priests were actually what we consider a part-time job. They would officiate ceremonies, but as soon as they removed their vestments they were not required to continue to act as a priest. Additionally, should Coryan actually have lawyers, it would probably not be unheard of to have a priest or initiate as at least an adviser to your case, even if they do not argue it for you in court.
But what of the Holy Judges? Well, this is still a Holy Champion Order that I grapple with even when playing the game. My personal Character is one of these holy vigilantes, which means that it is a very important question to me. From what I've seen, a Holy Judge is recognized by the Church as a champion of RELIGIOUS justice in the Empire, but not necessarily by the civil bureaucracy. They travel the lands acting as jurists when there are no Imperial officials present, or if the crime at hand doesn't warrant the attention of such an official. They hunt down those who actively seek to poison the minds of the faithful from the True Gods (ie: humans worshipping the elements, the Myrantian deities, etc), and dispense summery justice in combination or in opposition to the Inquisition. We also know, though, that they do act as the Batmans (Batmen?) of the Arcanis Universe. We have one canon example of a Holy Judge fighting in the Arena of Grand Coryan, 'judging' the slaves and criminals who are thrown into that Arena for their crimes. If they survive, than the Holy Judge deems than innocent, and is known to actually set them free of their enslavement and incarceration. There are also cases of Holy Judges stalking those who escaped justice, such as by corruption, Batman- or Daredevil-style. I would expect that the secular City Watches of the locations with such Holy Judges would be just as torn as the police forces in New York or Gotham City. On one hand, they are completely going against the ordered society and need to be stopped, but on the other they are providing a means to punish those who can afford to bribe their way to innocence.
Punishment is also something else which is probably very different in Coryan compared to Rome. In Rome, people were rarely incarcerated for more than a few days. The Romans considered jails to be a waste of resources, which meant that other punishments were preferred. High among these were execution (such as via the much-loved crucifixion, but also including being thrown to the beasts in the arenas), physical punishment (whipping, cutting off of hands, branding, etc), exile from the Empire, or being sold into slavery (such as becoming a gladiator). The few individuals who were kept in prisons long term were usually there not as punishment, but as showpieces in Triumphs (basically, victory parades) to show how awesome the Empire is. An example of this is the Celtic leader Vercingetorix. I should also note that this was a very common practice in other cultures, including the United States with individuals such as Geronimo just over a century ago. Many of the punishments of Rome (much like Greece) were either perminent (ie: execution) or social in nature (such as disenfranchisement), the latter of which was a far more shameful punishment as societies like Rome and Greece identified much more with the community than we do today, so becoming a social outcast was a terrible punishment indeed.
Coryan, on the other hand, seems to follow a much more modern sense when it comes to punishment. While we know the Coryani use slaves and execute criminals, these rarely are shown 'on screen' in mods. The main reason for this, I'm sure, is that these mods are written to those with modern sensibilities, which means that players would be insulted by watching an NPC suffer 'cruelly' or 'unusually' by our morals. In Rome, the crucifixition of a criminal would be viewed as an every day event, and few if any Romans questioned the institution of slavery (this is backed up by historical records from what I've looked into), and the vast majority of Romans (and certainly the Greeks) would be even more horrified by Gnomes and Dark-kin than we 'enlightened' modern folk. However, we are NOT Roman, or Coryani (or Elorii, or Ss'ressen, or Milandisian, etc) which means we PLAYERS find such things offensive. This means that there are more exiles and incarcerations in Arcanis lore than would be found in ancient civilizations.
Anyway, just a few thoughts while I was listening to a lovely audiobook about 'terrible' ancient cultures