When the sentient humanoids you have been killing come back to haunt...

[Grondar]

Recently a goblin mom and child showed up in the large town we have been adventuring out of. Somehow this goblin mom and child became represented by a lawyer that lives in town and is now charging our adventuring group with genocide.

A priceless moment ensued when the goblin child pointed his grubby little claw at us and squeaked out, "That's them m'Lord. They's the ones that murdered my family." Yes apparently goblin children have English accents or have read Oliver Twist.

What is an adventurer to do? :smallconfused:

[comk59]

Uv course gobbos 'ave cockney accents ya runty git!

Heh. Yeah, all my greenskins have that kind of accent, due almost entirely to Warhammer. Can't imagine them without it now.


In the meantime, this is a bit of a pickle. If the goblins were allowed to do this, then they have rights in the kingdom, and are recognuzed as people. This means that murder, discriminate or otherwise, will not get you out of this.

If you plan on fighting the charges, we need a bit of context. For starters, are you guys actually guilty?

[Grondar]

"Guilty as charged m'Lord"

We don't live in a Kingdom it is more like a Freehold. I think the DM is throwing that at us for comedy relief but also bring home and put in contrast the role of most adventurers, which is to kill sentient beings and take their stuff.

The lawyer is a firebrand/ACLU trope that will, I am sure plague us in the future.

It does bring to mind another adventure we had in 4ed where we ran into some Chults (the lobster critters) and deciding to eat them with some nice drawn butter, only to find out later that they were sentient. Who knew?

[NecroDancer]

At least it isn't revenants.

Now that I think about it there should be a lot more kobold/goblin revenants

[Sigreid]

Make the lawyer disappear and in the future remember the golden rule, no live witnesses.

[Coffee_Dragon]

Make the large town you have been adventuring out of disappear, just to be sure.

[Cespenar]

Come on, that's a false generalization of orcs and goblins.

Human thugs and thieves should have Cockney accent as well.

[Sigreid]

Couple of questions.

1. Did you kill the goblins within the freehold?
2. If yes, were the goblins armed and posing an active threat to the residents of the freehold?

If the answer to 1 is no, then you broke no laws in the freehold either way and there is no case against you.
If the answer to 2 is yes, then you were merely defending the local people from a threat posed by an outside active force.

[DragonSorcererX]

Recently a goblin mom and child showed up in the large town we have been adventuring out of. Somehow this goblin mom and child became represented by a lawyer that lives in town and is now charging our adventuring group with genocide.

A priceless moment ensued when the goblin child pointed his grubby little claw at us and squeaked out, "That's them m'Lord. They's the ones that murdered my family." Yes apparently goblin children have English accents or have read Oliver Twist.

What is an adventurer to do? :smallconfused:

Do the Adventurers have acess to Turn Undead or Holy Water? If so, they can use the good ol' medieval way of getting unholy people killed...

[Unoriginal]

Did you commit genocide?

[Grondar]

In no way did we eliminate all of the goblins in the land, which I think is the truer definition of genocide.

The lawyer just threw that in there for posturing because he knew he didn't have a prayer of winning in court.

Game Update: Got our day in court. The prosecuting lawyer made an impassioned speech about the sanctity of all life, while the freshly bathed goblins fidgeted nervously. As soon as he was done the judge interrupted our attorney's opening speech and dismissed the case, saying "Them there greenskins got no standing in my court. Case dismissed!"

To put a capstone on this whole affair, the opposing lawyer was ushering the goblins consolingly out of the building and the little cheeky goblin child bit off his finger! We did nothing to detain the goblins as they bolted from the building and town.

We left town immediately to pursue some raiding Orcs that have been harassing trade routes. Our lesson learned? We are not the leave no witnesses type of group so I am not sure what we learned.

[SharkForce]

In no way did we eliminate all of the goblins in the land, which I think is the truer definition of genocide.

attempting to is also genocide, last i checked. you don't need to succeed.

also, it doesn't necessarily have to be racial, it can also be by culture, for example. but most importantly, it has to be *because* of those things. if you're trying to kill the goblin tribe because they're trying to kill you, not genocide. if you're trying to kill the goblin tribe because they're goblins and you hate them, genocide. more or less. i mean, i don't imagine anything in a court of law is so clearly delineated.

of course, that all presumes that you're using the RL meaning of genocide, which didn't really even exist until relatively recently, all things considered. and which certainly doesn't account for things like the actual existence of creatures that are literally pure evil, like demons and devils.