Crucifixion

[MeTekillot]

Why doesn't Allanak do this?

[Dar]

What would they crucify people on? 20 feet tall wooden beams?

[MeTekillot]

Jade and black dyed stone crosses instead. There could be a circle of them at Meleth's.

[Dar]

I guess. Keep in mind, this wont be an easy thing.

A cross like that will have a tendency to crumble, etc

Wooden beams roman empire crilucified people on were nice due to their ease.  Cut down two small trees. Debark, debranch, nail together. Tada! And they were never placed inside city bounds due to smell and sanitation concerns.

Allanak simply doesnt have that need.

[MeTekillot]

Smell and sanitation, huh?

[yousuff]

Lol we have obsidian breastplates so all sense of realism with regards to "it'll crumble/shatter/be fragile" are out the window. Also not to be snarky but pointing out the obvious here, if Allanak is concerned about hygiene they wouldn't have a massive festering pile of bodies in the open streets in Meleth's. Have bone crosses and crucify people from those, would be very Allanaki

[roughneck]

Nah. Resources too scarce to crucify en mass.

Hang corpses off the walls!

[IronGold]

Why Crucify when we have the preferred Cuddler or the Arena for executions? If you are going to be killed in Allanak we're going to enjoy killing you and watching you die in a spray of blood rather than a long and drawn out process that no one enjoys watching. On and OOC note, the executions try to give more of a scene for the player and I doubt a player is going to want to RP out being in pain for several RL hours before someone stabs them to make sure they are dead anyway.

[daughterofauset]

Nah. Resources too scarce to crucify en mass.

Hang corpses off the walls!

This, but also the arena post. I get wanting to draw out suffering but this seems like maybe not the funnest way to do that for the audience. Yes crucifixion was a way Romans killed people but the arena was too, and we already have an arena in game.

[sleepyhead]

If it's about which materials would realistically hold up, those sandstone Templar statues all over the place should be long gone. I wouldn't mind if it was done, but I'd appreciate it more as a flavor thing in the background rather than anything that happens to PCs.

[Dar]

Smell and sanitation, huh?

I'm talking about ancient rome.

Allanak:pile of corpses in main square and hygiene be damned.

Rome: we cant leave corpses inside cities. So we crucify them on top of hills/along main roads on tall crosses to maximize visibility.

[Lutagar]

it's just not a very exciting way to execute pcs

effectively you're just starving them to death but only in a very public way

[Delirium]

What we need are more HANGINGS!

Break out the fried tubers and mugs of ale, boys, it's time to go watch some feet kick!

Getcher rotten petoch ready to throw!

[razorback]

What we need are more HANGINGS!

Break out the fried tubers and mugs of ale, boys, it's time to go watch some feet kick!

Getcher rotten petoch ready to throw!

Wouldn't even need a gallows. Just have a half-giant raise his arm.

[th3kaiser]

Just so we're clear, people don't starve to death on a crucifix. It tends to be exhaustion and asphyxiation.

[MeTekillot]

Or getting jabbed by a spear or bleeding to death or exposure.

[Heade]

Or getting jabbed by a spear or bleeding to death or exposure.

People keep mentioning being jabbed by a spear. Most people who were crucified were not stabbed in such a way. Being stabbed by a spear, while crucified, is a mercy. It is a way to speed your end so that you don't suffer. And the entire point of crucifiction is to cause suffering. If you stabbed the crucified, you could likely expect to be punished.

Think about it. Anyone who has worked with wood IRL with hand tools would know how much work would go into building and erecting a cross to support someone's weight for crucifiction. If you spent a bunch of manpower doing that, only to have someone stabbed to death, why not just tie them up and stab them to begin with? Save yourself a day's worth of lumber work.

[MeTekillot]

If the Lord Templar says "Stand guard until he dies" and you get bored a few hours into it you can take the rest of the night off if you give him a little jab when nobody cares to care.

[Cabooze]

big ol' obsidian crosses. Couple of holes on either arm of the cross and the lower body of it, to impale someone's limbs with bone or obsidian, to hold them up in place. Blood-stained and sooty from recent or distant fires. If a punishment for a PC, code it up like a cage room where it displays your Sdesc on the cross, but you cannot leave the cross unless someone lets you down from it.

Designed so you either die from incremental damage from being on the cross (if staff wants to give you some bleed code), or from sheer dehydration/starvation. Dehydration on the cross could be upped akin to being in the saltflats, because you're pinned to a big black cross-shaped slab- that shit gets hot in the sun.

[Feco]

BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE!

Make PCs who want to make this a thing.  Make it a thing!

[James de Monet]

Yeah...no thanks.

I realize I'm probably in the minority here, and that strictly speaking there's nothing sacrosanct about a particular method of torturing people (not least because it's torture, and also because the Romans did it to loads of people), but being in a scene with PCs yelling "Crucify him!" as someone is flogged and led away is still going to feel like sacrilege to me, the player.

Kill people by the same mechanism, but call it something uniquely Zalanthan, on a shape other than a cross (like how the Cuddler is essentially just a medieval Rack), and I'd be fine.  (Though I'd still hate to be the player trying to stay engaged as my PC dies a powerless, agonizingly slow death, FWIW.)

[razorback]

You could call it T-posing...

But seriously, although this would be very Allanak to do, I think it would have to be relegated to NPCs who wouldn't mind the wait time. The pit, and the Cuddler, do enough of the 'torture' without instant death, but not having to wait on a slow death either.

[CodeMaster]

It'd be cool if there were pillories.  It would nice to be able to get caught stealing and not have to idle alone in the dark or be outright killed.

[razorback]

It'd be cool if there were pillories.  It would nice to be able to get caught stealing and not have to idle alone in the dark or be outright killed.

Now this I could see, it would be an alternative to waiting in the cells and hoping a ranked soldier or Templar would come entertain/kill you. Maybe something more like a birdcage hanging over the intersection of Commoner's and Caravan. You get put in there and people can walk by and laugh/poke/prod/throw rotten fruit at you.

[Inks]

I like the idea of public displays for thieves rather than boring jail cell. Cruxifiction seems okay, but I would get bored soon enough unless there was a way to be rescued, so would want a quit die option, for sure.

[Cabooze]

I like the idea of public displays for thieves rather than boring jail cell. Cruxifiction seems okay, but I would get bored soon enough unless there was a way to be rescued, so would want a quit die option, for sure.

Definitely a way to be rescued, if someone comes along and lets you down if 'cage code' is implemented on it. Like the slave/beast cages of old, people would trap themselves inside by accident and need to ask to be let out. Comedy gold, in certain situations.

[Intrepid]

You don't need crosses to crucify someone.  The most important part of this method is just to have a small, sloping platform to place the feet and a three coils of hemp rope: One for each wrist, the third for the feet.

The exhaustion and asphyxiation stems from the fact that you're having to alternate supports between the shooting pain in your legs from the diagonally down sloping foot support and the constriction of your lungs from being hung by ropes on your arms.  Sooner or later, the pain in your legs gets too much and you can't prop yourself up anymore, slowly choking to death.  This would usually go on for a day to a day and a half.

The draw to using this method was basically a fatal version of a pillory.  The crowd could jeer and toss rotten fruit at the victim over a long period of time.  And it gave the public a slow, torturous death to watch and remember what happens to those who would offend the state.

Lastly, when that victim finally passes on, they eliminate.  As in, they empty their bowels and bladder as the body shuts down.

So yeah, that's the long and short of it, if you'll pardon the pun.  With time sped up, it might be a way to give something rare in Arm: A dramatic death that allows some emotes and speech.

Lastly, to address religious concerns: Christ's crucifixion was unique, involving scourging on the way to Gologtha, as well as a crown of thorns and iron nails.  It's iconic, literally speaking, but this execution method existed centuries prior.  There's no need to attach sacrilege to what was basically a way of executing non-Roman citizens.  Incidentally, Roman citizens were executed by simple beheading.  Quick, clean, and merciful.  You might say that most arena matches would have a similar view by the populace...

...except sometimes the criminal wins.

[daughterofauset]

You don't need crosses to crucify someone.  The most important part of this method is just to have a small, sloping platform to place the feet and a three coils of hemp rope: One for each wrist, the third for the feet.

The exhaustion and asphyxiation stems from the fact that you're having to alternate supports between the shooting pain in your legs from the diagonally down sloping foot support and the constriction of your lungs from being hung by ropes on your arms.  Sooner or later, the pain in your legs gets too much and you can't prop yourself up anymore, slowly choking to death.  This would usually go on for a day to a day and a half.

The draw to using this method was basically a fatal version of a pillory.  The crowd could jeer and toss rotten fruit at the victim over a long period of time.  And it gave the public a slow, torturous death to watch and remember what happens to those who would offend the state.

Lastly, when that victim finally passes on, they eliminate.  As in, they empty their bowels and bladder as the body shuts down.

So yeah, that's the long and short of it, if you'll pardon the pun.  With time sped up, it might be a way to give something rare in Arm: A dramatic death that allows some emotes and speech.

Lastly, to address religious concerns: Christ's crucifixion was unique, involving scourging on the way to Gologtha, as well as a crown of thorns and iron nails.  It's iconic, literally speaking, but this execution method existed centuries prior.  There's no need to attach sacrilege to what was basically a way of executing non-Roman citizens.  Incidentally, Roman citizens were executed by simple beheading.  Quick, clean, and merciful.  You might say that most arena matches would have a similar view by the populace...

...except sometimes the criminal wins.

This I could get down with. Crucifying on a cross, much less so. This seems hella more zalanthan to me.

[gotdamnmiracle]

Crucifixion prior to crucifixion was public empalement. Certain countries got so good at missing vital organs and avoiding major bloodlines that a parson could survive for two whole days with a massive wooden spike driven through their back.

Honestly, both options seem brutal enough for Allanak. I imagine a LOT of spindly elf corpses displayed openly.

[650Booger]

I prefer the nursery for drawn out deaths.  tossed in a pit to be eaten alive by carnivorous insects sounds much more Zalanthan then somebody asphyxiating on a cross.

[Feco]

I prefer the nursery for drawn out deaths.  tossed in a pit to be eaten alive by carnivorous insects sounds much more Zalanthan then somebody asphyxiating on a cross.

[Veselka]

Crucifixion would honestly take me out of it a bit. I mean, it could make sense. There are jade crosses on the Allanaki emblem. It's just a little too rooted in our own history and timeline to not be a bit jarring.

I suppose that might be why hangings/gallows haven't really made their way into the game, as well, RL sensitivities. I'd personally be all for them. I think Staff is willing to play ball in this respect, at least in my last conversations with them about it -- It's just a matter of getting a PC in a position of authority to make it happen.

There are Gibbets up North, and that also seemed more Zalanthan to me than crucifixion.

[Dar]

Stocks might be an interesting idea for punishments in Allanak. Lock someone up to let them suffer starvation and heat out in the open, but not die. Other characters may have a choice to offer food/water, despite it being illegal, or throw rocks and stones at the person, which is always always fun.


I personally do not think crucifixion is a viable option for Allanak. But not due to it's IRL connotations. If nothing else, if crucifixion ever would get done in the game, it would be due to IRL history, not due to it being a viable, logical, or effective method of execution.

[daughterofauset]

Stocks might be an interesting idea for punishments in Allanak. Lock someone up to let them suffer starvation and heat out in the open, but not die. Other characters may have a choice to offer food/water, despite it being illegal, or throw rocks and stones at the person, which is always always fun.


I personally do not think crucifixion is a viable option for Allanak. But not due to it's IRL connotations. If nothing else, if crucifixion ever would get done in the game, it would be due to IRL history, not due to it being a viable, logical, or effective method of execution.

RL connotations and history are explicitly why I oppose hanging people on a cross IG. The other suggestion of a creative way to tie them up that suffocates them while providing a show, though, and does not involve a cross, I can totally get behind.

[James de Monet]

There's no need to attach sacrilege to what was basically a way of executing non-Roman citizens.

It's not a matter of "need", really.  I'm just stating how that would feel, to me.

[Is Friday]

BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE!

Make PCs who want to make this a thing.  Make it a thing!

My noble wrote a book on the various methods of torture present in the game after observing each one. Crucifixion is one of them.

[Miradus]

Am I the only character who has ever died on the Cuddler? Cause reading this thread makes me feel the Cuddler doesn't get used enough.

[650Booger]