Prisons in an Incarnum-focused Setting?

[Vrock_Summoner]

So, I've been mentioning lately over a few threads that I'm working on an Incarnum-based setting. This is another step for that.

From the perspective of mechanics, most prisons as presented in regular D&D don't work. For Incarnates and Totemists (though not Soulborns, because some writer decided Soulborns being good at anything would be a travesty and avoided it at all costs) you can't just take away their magic items, throw them in anti-magic shackles, and call it a day, because they make their own magic items through sheer concentration and there's no such thing as "Anti-Incarnum Shackles" or an "Anti-Incarnum Field" if you don't have non-Incarnum magic to make them with. So basically, every Incarnate or Totemist you capture (as a criminal or prisoner of war, say) would be a constant security threat with few means of truly nullifying it as far as I can tell. I mean, okay, preventing them from ever getting an hour's concentration to form Soulmelds would work, but such would be impractical and probably quite Evil; the fact that Incarnum is based on Constitution and that plenty of characters have reason to take ranks in Concentration (for this exact situation) means Concentration checks will be high, and they can totally do it while you still think they're asleep, so basically they'll just have to torture you every hour so you can't shape your soulmelds. Maybe works for Evil nations, at least those who like to take prisoners.

But what would the Good and Neutral guys do?

All thoughts are appreciated.

[Nifft]

1 - Prisons are for commoners, not the Noble Souls who can shape soulmelds.

2 - Prisoners are compelled at swordpoint to swear a binding oath before the altar of ${ENTITY} to not escape using his or her own power; if the prisoner breaks this oath, he or she is hunted down by archons / demons / devils / slaad.

3 - There's a custom magic item which prevents Incarnum users from doing their thing.

4 - There's a custom magic spell effect which can be attached to a Hallow or Unhallow, and those can be performed by a Solar that a level 20 Incarnate gets 1/week via Gate.

[torrasque666]

Remember this bit from Magic of Incarnum, page 52?

Dispel magic and spells of that nature interact with a soulmeldas if the soulmeld were a magic item. If a dispel magic
spell is targeted on a specifi c soulmeld, the caster makes a
dispel check against a DC of 11 + the soulmeld’s meldshaper
level. If successful, the soulmeld’s magical properties are
suppressed for 1d4 rounds
Antimagic effects are spells of a nature similar enough to Dispel effects to count. Thus, antimagic shackles are fine.

[sleepyphoenixx]

They use guards. Without items a meldshaper may be better off than other non-casters, but they're not really a threat to a well trained and equipped guard force unless they're significantly higher level.
Just have guards patrol your prison and every time someone has a soulmeld shaped he's forced to unshape it or he "falls down the stairs" until he does.
If you have regular patrols there isn't really much they can get up to without you noticing, because soulmelds aren't exactly subtle.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Dead magic areas are also dead soulmeld areas.

Second paragraph on the right-hand column.

Antimagic is anti-incarnum so antimagic shackles work just fine. Even if that weren't the case, soul-banned zone is functionally identical to antimagic field solely for soulmelds, make shackles that radiate that effect for the exact same cost as antimagic shackles.

[Vrock_Summoner]

Remember this bit from Magic of Incarnum, page 52?

Antimagic effects are spells of a nature similar enough to Dispel effects to count. Thus, antimagic shackles are fine.


there's no such thing as "Anti-Incarnum Shackles" or an "Anti-Incarnum Field" if you don't have non-Incarnum magic to make them with
Allow me to clarify what I meant by the bolded part. The setting isn't Incarnum-based because most people use Incarnum instead of magic for lulz or cultural reasons or something, it's because the core spellcasting sort of magic is just shy of impossible to come by. So the only magic generally available (albeit widely so) is personal Incarnum and whatever an Ironsoul Forgemaster can pump out without a spellcaster handy.


1 - Prisons are for commoners, not the Noble Souls who can shape soulmelds.
So, Incarnum is pretty widely available in this setting, but I didn't initially mention that, so I'll just address this suggestion on face value. If the "Noble Souls" who can shape Incarnum don't go to those commoner-infested prisons, what exactly does happen with them? Are they instantly considered innocent of any and all charges brought against them that aren't caught in the act and thus reacted to with swords to the face? Are they just expected to sit around without restraint while awaiting trial or, better yet, ransom? Or is it the opposite; do we just not take any chances with these guys who can soulmeld and assume they're guilty of everything serious they get accused of, thus murderstabbing them as soon as the opportunity presents itself?


2 - Prisoners are compelled at swordpoint to swear a binding oath before the altar of ${ENTITY} to not escape using his or her own power; if the prisoner breaks this oath, he or she is hunted down by archons / demons / devils / slaad.
So the literal forces of the cosmos come down to respond to every prison riot? And they aren't just coming down and dealing with every single problem anybody has in this setting when they have that much manpower and willingness to use it? I'm not sure how to make this one work.


3 - There's a custom magic item which prevents Incarnum users from doing their thing.
See above on magic items.


4 - There's a custom magic spell effect which can be attached to a Hallow or Unhallow, and those can be performed by a Solar that a level 20 Incarnate gets 1/week via Gate.
Again, not trying to call your suggestion invalid since I didn't mention this in the opening post, but nothing approaching level 20 will be a commodity in this setting. I don't think they're readily available in most settings, but hey, who am I to assume things about how you guys play? At this point, I'm actually representing beings of the closest thing my setting has to "godly" power with Incarnate or Totemist 20 Meldshaping + killer stats and some SLAs and such, but that may change down the road.

If I did trend the levels up to where this would be possible, it'd still probably be in a sort of "all meldshapers get carted off to the capitol's megaprison so the one level 20 guy can do this," which may or may not be way too expensive to be practical depending on how many Incarnum wealth generation tricks I've managed to not notice.

[Urpriest]

The list of melds available is pretty small, so I think you could just get away with having specific countermeasures. Acidic Spittle is probably the most problematic, so having some sort of acid-resistant materials in-setting to deal with that is necessary, perhaps with muzzles for particularly problematic prisoners. You probably can't teleport out of chains any more than you can teleport out of clothing, and being hobbled with chains stops you from using your incarnum blades/natural weapons/etc. Other things can be stopped by keeping guards watching you at all times: if you make a soulspark familiar for example, the guards can kill it and then beat you up. (If you're worried that there won't be enough guards to do this reliably, use a Panopticon setup so the prisoners have to assume they're guarded at all times.)

Are there particular melds you're worried about?

[Flickerdart]

So, Incarnum is pretty widely available in this setting, but I didn't initially mention that, so I'll just address this suggestion on face value. If the "Noble Souls" who can shape Incarnum don't go to those commoner-infested prisons, what exactly does happen with them? Are they instantly considered innocent of any and all charges brought against them that aren't caught in the act and thus reacted to with swords to the face? Are they just expected to sit around without restraint while awaiting trial or, better yet, ransom? Or is it the opposite; do we just not take any chances with these guys who can soulmeld and assume they're guilty of everything serious they get accused of, thus murderstabbing them as soon as the opportunity presents itself?
People don't await trial in prison. They sit in jail - hardly a supermax prison. Compare the deepest dungeons to a sheriff's drunk tank.

Ideas for long-term punishment:

Social pressure: A society, especially an upper class, could confine one of their rank to house arrest through sheer shame - the individual would not dare show his face outside.
A quest: This works great for all adventurers - exile until they perform X task that redeems them.
Trial by combat: The aforementioned task is murdering a beastie or a champion of the defender's.
Powerful guards: Incarnum has relatively few options for fancy escapes. Outside of dimension door and crappy flight, their best move is to bust out the ol' ultraviolence. Flight is defeated by a roof, dimension door is defeated by mazes.
Ravenloft: Chuck 'em into another plane using a naturally formed portal that the society found. The only way out is back through there.

[Vrock_Summoner]

People don't await trial in prison. They sit in jail - hardly a supermax prison. Compare the deepest dungeons to a sheriff's drunk tank.
Aye, that's right, silly me. A more apt thing to say would be "every prison sentence is automatically a death sentence," which is admittedly far less anachronistic in most period-themed settings.

Great ideas, btw.

[Flickerdart]

A more apt thing to say would be "every prison sentence is automatically a death sentence," which is admittedly far less anachronistic in most period-themed settings.
Yeah, that's pretty much how it went.

The modern prison is supposed to combine two things - punishment and rehabilitation.

Punishment: The punishment provided by a prison is "you can't do stuff, including the stuff you did that landed you here." This prevents crime by being a deterrent. If you can't do this, you need another deterrent (such as death, exile, fines, or hard labour) and another means of preventing offenders from repeating their crime in your jurisdiction (death, exile).

Rehabilitation: There's not much point to jailing a guy if he goes right back to criming after he's freed - and "well now I know how much it sucks in jail" is not always enough. You need some way to turn him from a criminal into a useful member of society. Consider that prisoners were a very useful source of conscripts for ships - life aboard was awful, you couldn't readily escape, and your ship could get into combat and then you might die.

So just think of options that a) get the criminal out of everyone's faces, and b) make him contribute to society, either during or after the sentence.

[SwordChucks]

Being forced to work mining or some other resource gathering task would be a decent way for prisoners to pay back the government for the expenses accrued due to the crime itself and court costs. Also hard labor keeps prisoners too tired to mount an escape attempt.

As for a prison that keeps the prisoners seperate from law-abiding citizens, consider an island like the game Path of Exile. It's a dangerous land filled with criminals and monsters. No matter which dies the government benefits. If the island is far enough from the mainland or the waters are dangerous enough, the prisoners risk death trying to escape even if they can fly or swim.

[daremetoidareyo]

Once defeated and arrested, suspected meldshapers are placed into a sarcophagus like metal box, the interior of which is lined with wood. A few air holes, a slot with immediate access to the spine with a dagger. Once strapped into the box, they are laid down horizontally, facing up, (to deal with the acid spittle.) Line of sight is obscured. The only guarantee of survival from the box is to submit to some sort of binding ritual that requires X amount of participants who can meldshape. Each one of these (let's call them) magistrates commit some essencia to the ritual, and the meldshaper in the box is on incarnum lockdown for 1 day per essencia offered. This is actually a lucrative form of public service for certain people. Anyway, this ritual allows the meldshaper to stand trial like a dignified creature. Unwilling participants of the ritual must be warned 3 times, the third of which must be telepathically that they must participate in the ritual or be killed or sold into slavery. Once the ritual takes place, the arrested individual can be released from the box.

Meldshapers in custody are dangerous. And must be forcefully dealt with. Even for good society.

There are charity missions in this society who purposefully buy up prisoners as "slaves," hoping to save the lives of these folks, but even then, sometimes particularly unhinged meldshapers bought for slavery may need to be killed, as they are non-functional for society. Those slaves are typically set free after some hokey course of rehabilitation, although quite a few wind up working for similar agencies...

[Flickerdart]

Once defeated and arrested, suspected meldshapers are placed into a sarcophagus like metal box, the interior of which is lined with wood. A few air holes, a slot with immediate access to the spine with a dagger. Once strapped into the box, they are laid down horizontally, facing up, (to deal with the acid spittle.) Line of sight is obscured. The only guarantee of survival from the box is to submit to some sort of binding ritual that requires X amount of participants who can meldshape. Each one of these (let's call them) magistrates commit some essencia to the ritual, and the meldshaper in the box is on incarnum lockdown for 1 day per essencia offered. This is actually a lucrative form of public service for certain people. Anyway, this ritual allows the meldshaper to stand trial like a dignified creature. Unwilling participants of the ritual must be warned 3 times, the third of which must be telepathically that they must participate in the ritual or be killed or sold into slavery. Once the ritual takes place, the arrested individual can be released from the box.

Meldshapers in custody are dangerous. And must be forcefully dealt with. Even for good society.

There are charity missions in this society who purposefully buy up prisoners as "slaves," hoping to save the lives of these folks, but even then, sometimes particularly unhinged meldshapers bought for slavery may need to be killed, as they are non-functional for society. Those slaves are typically set free after some hokey course of rehabilitation, although quite a few wind up working for similar agencies...
I feel like it's important to quote the OP:
"But what would the Good and Neutral guys do?"

In case you are confused, treating suspects (who are innocent in the eyes of the law) is Evil.

[daremetoidareyo]

I feel like it's important to quote the OP:
"But what would the Good and Neutral guys do?"

In case you are confused, treating suspects (who are innocent in the eyes of the law) is Evil.

Suspects need to be brought into the system. If they fight the arrest, this is the only means by which safety is assured to the non-meldshapers who have to deal with the suspect until the legal system can interface with him.

If magic is out, all that's left is force, or letting all meldshapers just walk over your ineffectual system of government. Good societies sometimes need to use force. If the meldshaper is accommodating, he can ride in a box to the courthouse, get the ritual over with, and be drinking free coffee with the cops in no time.

This system works for Neutral societies as well as lawful good. CG would just knock the meldshapers out and kick them out of the tribe. NG would probably use nets and ravages, and if they aren't available or working, some sort of tranquilizer. (I'm reticent to suggest a substance that can de-activate meldshaping because PCs would naturally begin optimizing on that, so i suggest a ritual)

If you have a rampaging totemist messing up your town, you have to do something. The safest thing to do after the barbarian sheriff knocks him out is put him in a box. Once in the box, you need a way to negate their power. If the ritual didn't need consent, then you can just cut out the threat of slavery or death, but would still need a means of dealing with having a meldshaper in genpop. I would venture to say that it is more cruel to leave them in the box for an entire prison sentence.