The Steel Reins

The Steel Reins are the Holy Theocracy of Olympus’s laws governing magic and those who wield it. Passed into law only within the last year - and still settling into enforcement - they bind every spellcaster who does not draw their power from the gods, and grow only stricter with time. An organisation that registers under the Theocracy is bound by them in full.

The Law

1. Registration. Every spellcaster who does not receive their power from the gods - whether through deep study, an innate magical affinity, or other magical circumstance - must be registered as such, together with a concise list of every spell they can cast, including spells they carry and magic items they hold (subject to the limits of §6).
2. Licence and arm-band. To enter cities or cross the Theocracy’s borders, a caster must present a Licensed Caster Certificate, issued wherever it is demanded alongside their registration; they must also wear an arm-band identifying them and the permissions granted to them.
   • The arm-band must be worn at all times within the Theocracy, not only at borders and city gates.
3. Pact-casters are outlaws. Those who gained their magic through a bargain with an outside entity that is not a god are outlaws, to be tried for their crimes.
4. Public service. Casters require special approval to serve in public bodies - the army, the guard, bureaucratic posts - and are placed under special oversight when they do.
5. Forbidden schools. Beyond the universally known list of forbidden spells, any spell falling under Necromancy, Enchantment, or Illusion is forbidden. To use or possess such magic without explicit authorisation - granted only under the strictest limits, for cases of unquestioned necessity and urgency and for clear military or religious purpose - is a grave crime against the state and the gods.
   • Permits for animal communication may be granted to hunter-aides, herding-aides, clergy, satyrs, and centaurs.
   • Permits of possession for historical preservation are granted to licensed organisations only, each held to an organisational quota limiting how many of its members may keep such magic.
   • Research permits are granted as needed by the People’s Council.
6. Material components. The buying and holding of spellcasting materials is limited and strictly recorded.
   • No person may own more than a single item defined as a spellcasting focus.
   • No person may hold, upon their body or among their belongings, more than three items of any magical potential not flowing directly from the gifts of the gods.
7. No high office. A caster as defined by this law may not hold senior bureaucratic public office, nor sit upon the People’s Council.
8. Changelings. A being falling under the definition of a changeling is treated as a caster who casts illusion magic constantly, and is bound by the following:
   • Registration as a changeling, and the carrying of identifying papers.
   • The wearing of a shape-shifter arm-band, at all times.
   • The choosing of a single fixed form to hold to for life, recorded both in their papers and by the law.
   • A vow, before the law and the gods, to use their powers for nothing beyond minor cosmetic changes to that agreed form.

Enforcement

The Steel Reins took legal force only in the past year, and the manner of their enforcement is not yet fully settled. For an organisation registered under the Theocracy, the casting of a forbidden spell - whether within the Theocracy’s borders or beyond them - is reckoned a violation; the requirements of identification, certificate, and arm-band, by contrast, apply only within its borders. Of the five great legal traditions (see Law and the Courts of Thelemar), the Steel Reins make the Theocracy the harshest realm in the Old World for the unsanctioned mage.

Appendix

See Also

• The Holy Theocracy of Olympus
• Law and the Courts of Thelemar
• Partnerships and Adventuring Companies - home-state laws and the Masks Law

Sources & Attribution

• Primary lore: in-character legal notes on the laws of Termissis and the Theocracy (worldbuilding document), translated from the original and archived privately.