Law and custom in Gazad

Law and custom in Gazad are known from two campaigns. In the Sürgün Günlükleri ("Exile Chronicles") campaign, the officers of Gazad explained the dwarven law to Kemp Corvus, Sarah and Ephorus, and in the Yeni Dünya ("New World") campaign the past of the gnome Finli, set some six years before that campaign's main story, follows a case through the courts of Gazat.¹²

Theft

Under dwarven law the penalty for theft is death. Wealth is held to be the reward of labour and skill, so to steal a person's labour is reckoned the same as killing them; for this reason theft and smuggling are very rare among the dwarves themselves.¹

This agrees with Imperial accounts of the dwarves, in which the crime rate is very low, a dwarf's standing grows with age, wealth and skill, and dwarves place the good name of their family above all else.³

Strangers and their sponsors

The document of Balgur Demirkapı gave the companions the right to enter and travel the dwarven lands, but no exemption from their law. For a very long time no one who was not a dwarf by birth or by merit had passed that gate, so they were told that eyes would be on them. The family that had given them the pass had staked its own name on their conduct, and the officer who received them valued that trust enough to offer his own help once the formal record was done.⁴⁵

Thanks to the pass, the officer said, no one would attack their drow companion in the streets, and he might move more freely than in the Empire, provided he kept the law. The civil manners they knew would serve, so long as they never pulled anyone's beard in jest.⁶

Courts and judges

In dwarven justice the guards first investigate and lay their evidence before a judge. In disputes, family spokesmen may mediate; if they cannot agree, the parties set the credibility of their families against each other by trading the shames of their lines. A secret bribe to bend the law is a grave crime, while open gifts meant only to hasten a matter are not counted the same way.⁷⁸⁹

Most lawyers work for particular dwarven houses, though some take cases from outside. At the small guild hall of the lawmakers, a clerk pointed Finli to three lawyers who might take his partner's case, warning that the one best able to defend it might not want it for the sake of his family's standing.¹⁰¹¹

The judge in the case, an old dwarf named Gardrat Kazur, explained that the confessed thief of a rune tablet had been branded on the face and would be offered exile to the surface or death. He held the loss of the tablet a grave one, since the dwarves sometimes produce only one great rune master in a century. A defendant without kin might have his case announced so that a lawyer could defend him for nothing, and if none came forward he would have to defend himself; a respectable surety would help. Mithril, the judge said, is not counted a thing to be sold, and its theft is very rare in the underground kingdom.¹²¹³¹⁴

At the hearing the judge said he could not prove the partner's guilt but would apply a preventive measure, and asked Finli to stand surety. He freed the partner from the charges, but forbade him for twenty-five winters to leave the bounds of Gazat Fortress, its surface lands excepted. Then he had the grudge book brought, declared the matter erased without ink ever touching the page, and broke the pen himself.¹⁵¹⁶¹⁷

Gnomes who work there may be respected for their handiwork, yet they are not counted dwarves; they work bound to a clan. In Imperial accounts, a person who earns respect and is invited into a clan is counted a dwarf.¹⁸¹⁹

Daily life

In the taverns of the town, dwarf sex workers of both sexes, the drinking of soldiers on leave and games of strength are common. Butting the door with one's head, arm-wrestling and throwing stones are games, not brawls. Public life is mostly that of men: there are said to be three or four men to every woman, in about one family in ten a woman may have more than one husband, and divorce and remarriage are frequent.²⁰²¹

The farmers who grow food on the surface are held in great respect, and a fear of falling into the sky is common among dwarves.²²