tao_myst wrote: I have a question, when was the IC racism law abolished from cordor? cause I can't see it anywhere on forums/wiki other than the "remove the skullies" post, or was it changed at that point?
CONFUSED (dot com :S )
Here's the truth (as I tell it):
Cordor was always known as the City of Tolerance not because of any particular law against racism, but because of a policy (not a law, I'll explain the different in a moment) of behavior supported by the Duke. Cordor was and still is a very large and important commercial city that sees lots of trade and mercantilism, and it was thought that a laissez-faire style of government and an "open door" policy towards all races and creeds, etc., was the best way to keep everyone happy, and to keep everyone buying and selling and trading.
It was a beautiful dream.
It was also, truth be told, a total OOC mechanism of the setting. Cordor was (and to an extent, still is) the "starter city". By having the starter city hold a dangerously liberal and open-minded policy even towards the races that want to kill everyone else (drow, orcs, goblins, kobolds, etc.), the DM/Dev Team of yore realized that it needed to be somewhat progressive.
Over the years, Amia keeps drifter more and more towards grittier, more serious RP. It is a very, very gradual shift, but it has happened, though not without a few hiccups along the way.
As the links tell the story, one day Lieutenant Galverson asks a drow to take off her helmet. She says no. Galverson arrests her for refusal to comply with the request. A very liberal special interest group (that still exists in Cordor, btw) stepped up to defend the drow woman's rights and screamed that racial prejudice was behind her arrest. The case went to trial.
Although Lieutenant Galverson was technically on trial in civil court, the truth is that the Tolerance Policy itself was on trial. PCs weighed in, along with various NPCs. Estara takes the credit for getting the ball rolling with the petition that sealed the deal in the end, with overwhelming PC support for a banishment of Lolthlites....which was a move that flew directly in the face of the Tolerance Policy.
The Tolerance Policy, again, was never a law. A policy is just a suggested way of doing things, one that isn't technically enforced by the law. When people were arrested for "racism" while the Tolerance Policy was still under effect, they were NOT being arrested for an act of racism...they were being arrested for disturbing the peace, or for inciting a riot, or, in some cases, an act of violence. Racism itself was not against the law, but the Guard came down on it. Hard. Because people were genuinely trying to support the idea of the Tolerance Policy.
Duke Montgomery, upon seeing the overwhelming support for a banishment of Lolthlites (read: not DROW, but Lolthlites specifically), made a public announcement. He exonerated Lieutenant Galverson in his civil trial of all wrongdoing (a blow to the liberal special interest group and a move that got the Duke in trouble later, as this incident was cited as an abuse of his power by the new Commonwealth Council), and basically told everyone he was sorry, but that the Tolerance Policy is only that - a policy. And that while this petition and his honoring of it may seem to defeat the idea of a Tolerance Policy, he personally wished that people would still make an attempt to carry on what he considered his "dream" for Cordor.
The dream more or less died on that day. The Duke's abdication from power, his criminal trial, and now his untimely death after a terrorist attack on the prison have all, in their own way, been nails in the coffin of the old Cordor Tolerance Policy.
So to set you straight, "racism" was never against the law. It was never a crime to begin with. But it was a social policy, and the guard, once upon a time, acted prejudicially towards obvious racists. This is not the case any more, as monstrous race PCs continue to prove, time and time and time again, that they truly wish to cause the people of the Commonwealth harm, and the non-monstrous race PCs, the "adventuring community", are either too lazy, too arrogant, too busy to help, or they just don't give a damn about the dangers facing the citizens of the Commonwealth from the monstrous/evil races.
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but I reserve the right to be friendly toward drow, dragonkin demon and celestial alike, so long as their character has their right to ask me to leave or face an unholy sword of utter devestation :O normally its the dragonkin or half-somethings that have an issue with me being human, ignoring me at most so far.
