[Information] A Miscellany of Facts and Fancies

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Find here a variety of articles about Quantium, Nex, or the world at large.

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Politics and Jurisprudence in Quantium

The Bandeshar is the center of justice in the city of Quantium. The city government, such as it is, operates out of the palace, on authority descending from the Castellan's office.

Citywide
A large staff of administrators, clerks and minor officials people the offices of the Bandeshar, but most of the authority is vested in six judges, who oversee the dispensation of justice at the city level. Much of their caseload is appelate work, appeals from the courts of district magistrates, but some of the cases they hear are original cases with no clear jurisdiction. These six judges and their staff hear all manner of cases -- contracts, family law, property disputes, and criminal proceedings.

District-Local
Within the districts, considerable latitude is given to the Magistrates that oversee the affairs of the district, and that latitude is often used as leverage. Magistrates typically have a large bureaucracy of their own, which also hear all manner of cases. The magistrates are also engaged in the making of the laws and regulations where the national or citywide ordinances do not apply. To that end, prominent citizens are frequently deeply involved with the district magistrates. Since a district's magistrate is likely to have an extraordinarily full schedule, associate magistrates or justices typically hear all but the most important of cases.

Notes on Various Districts

• Fogbottom is not a district, per se, so much as a region where the city government has ceased to provide real authority. That is not to say that the region is lawless, just that the city's laws are not policed. Criminal organizations run various areas of Fogbottom, and justice is often swift, brutal, and not always in accord with conventional ideas of justice.
• The River District's government is strongly influenced by the military presence there; residents of the district are not particularly well represented. The local magistrate, the Honorable Raythorn Tyrell, holds court in the ground level of Fort Blanc.
• In the Arcanoworks, the magistracy rotates between the heads of the magical academies located in the district. Currently, the head of al Haddiq holds the post.
• In the Seafoam District, centuries of decline have prompted ever-more-vicious squabbling over the declining fortunes. The magistrate's office is widely held to be enormously corrupt and marginally competent; each new magistrate is expected to clear house of all prior political appointees and reinstate fresh. With the magistrate's torq of office changing hands about once every two or three years, this has created a great deal of chaos.