The Valley Compact

[william.cain]

So, I'm running a DFRPG game with some friends of mine, and we decided to set it in my current home, the Victor Valley (primarily a tricity area of Apple Valley, Victorville, and Hesperia) in sunny high desert SoCal.

The Valley has a neat role as a sort of gateway between Southern California and Vegas. Along Interstates Fifteen and Forty, just west of Barstow. The Apple Valley Inn served as a kind of home away from home vacation spot for people like Nixon, Dale Evans, Roy Rogers, parts of the Rat Pack, and other celebrities before it closed down due to Evans'/Rogers' mismanagement of the property.

Given that kind of thing, I created a motif for the area I was wondering if you folks might possibly review for me.

Basically, the theme is Hideaway. The Valley isn't prosperous - Victorville is in economic freefall, and Apple Valley isn't much better off. It's a nice middle class area,but teetering on problems. It's the kind of place people come to get away from bigger areas, to start over or to give up.

I've got three factions in nominal control of the area: the Summer Court (holed up in the Apple Valley inn, and referring to their specific area as the Court of Apples, borrowed shamelessly from a White Wolf changeling faction), the White Council (most predominantly in the form of Holden Richter, a retired warden evoker badass), and the White Court (most notably in the form of Victory Career Solutions, or Vicious - a multilevel marketing scheme posing as employment assistance to enable despair-feeding). 

The part I'm most interested in sharing is the Valley Compact. Since the Valley is a place people come to hide or kill time, the three powers in the Valley created a set of local laws to protect this kind of "respite" mentality. The White Council like having a place to send troublesome people to cool their heels under the eye of a very competent ex-warden, the White Court like desperate people attracted by the low cost of living and unaware of the economic opportunities, and Summer simply have a lot of power in a place like this (where there's more life than you expect, and the summer heat is a weapon in itself).

The Compact predates the Unseelie Accords by about 50 years, and when the Accords came into being the Compact was incorporated into the Accords as a set of comparable laws. Rather than "the Accords don't count here, the Compact does," it's more that the Compact was very similar - Wergild, duelling etiquette, so forth, these were already extant in the Compact. Basically locals are dealt with under Compact specifics, out of towners can choose to duel under Accord or Compact rules, and such things.

The biggest difference is the Compact Tribunal. A semi-formal body of diplomats from the three powers in the area, it basically exists to keep things from getting nasty. If there's a Matter of Vengeance to be lodged, it has to go through the Tribunal (same with duelling requests). If you have evidence of a breachof the peace, you need to bring it by your power bloc, who then bring it by the tribunal.

These are my rough thoughts on the Compact. I hope folks like it, and have some advice for me in how to refine the idea.

[Dr.FunLove]

I like it. I'm a big fan of smaller organizations, entities, and agreements existing in various locales around the globe. Obviously it helps to flesh out aspects of the Dresden-verse that won't ever be touched. Sounds like you have the makings a cool game there.

[Wordmaker]

Yeah, sounds very cool. Like Dr.FunLove, I'm much more fond of seeing a range of factions and alliances in play than having everyone under the watchful eye of a few monolothic organisations. So anything that spices up a setting in that regard is cool, as far as I'm concerned.

[william.cain]

Thanks, guys!

Here's a little bit about Apple Valley Inn (where I've set the court of Apples):

http://paradiseleased.wordpress.com/2011/09/16/newts-paradise-apple-valleys-spectacular-hilltop-house/

The Inn has been closed for some time, as I said - now it's a business park. But in my world, it's still alive, old and glorious, because if certain stadiums can have parking lots...

The Hilltop House was especially awesome as part of the Inn,though it's sadly been subject to exposure and fires. This article and the flicker gallery inside tell us about some of it, and it seems like the kind of place Summer would hold high court functions.

[blackstaff67]

We've placed the Michiana area (Northernmost Indiana and Southernmost Michigan counties) as a type of eternal no-man's land for Winter and Summer, given the crazy variations of weather patterns we have here, kinda like a vital here two sides are always fighting over. 

Sounds like your Valley idea is a great one!  I just wish I had come up with a similar Compact (Grits his teeth in jealousy).

[william.cain]

Thanks to everyone for the kind words so far, I'm glad my idea of a modified version of the Accords works so well in peoples' eyes!

A little more on how the Compact functions:

The Tribunal is not a permanent body. It has no standing membership at -any- time, shockingly. This is because the Valley is not a big or important place, so no faction dumps huge amounts of money into it.

Instead, there is a small staff of representatives that can be appealed to - clerks, basically. If you have a Compact matter that requires Tribunal review, it's lodged with the clerks, who run it by their superiors. If the matter is deemed to be Tribunal worthy, relevant members of each of the three governing bodies will appoint the required officials. In practice, Holden Richter almost always handles White Council matters, the Lady Morrigan or Marquessa Gutierrez stand in for the summer court, while the White Court vampires tend to appoint mid-ranking members of the local house. Just who gets assigned is often a political message in itself, of course!

With Summer by far the strongest power in the Valley, there is a once-annual meeting of the Tribunal to discuss matters of overall importance, held near the summer solstice. Indeed, the compact almost wasn't incorporated into the accords because it was originally a summer proposal. It took the backing of the Council and the White Court to muscle its approval through.

A key example of how Tribunal law functions is the Matter of Vengeance. A specific legal condition under Compact law, it is only a matter concerned with non-natives who have come to the Valley on such matters. You -can- try to pursue vengeance under the Accords without consulting the Tribunal, but it is considered the height of bad manners, and the Tribunal can appoint someone to outright eject you from the area if they think you're going to disrupt the balance of power in the area. Instead, you are encouraged to lodge the matter with the Tribunal, who will appoint an investigator on your behalf. You are allowed to lodge your evidence, the accused is allowed to lodge theirs, and the Tribunal determines if it requires a duel, Wergild, sanction, or whatnot. Since this can bring the Tribunal's reputation into question (people like to come to the Valley to hide, after all), they are very precise and thorough in these investigations. They like quiet results, they don't like to be taken advantage of, and they are adamant that Compact and Tribunal authority be respected. A common arrangement in the Matter of Vengeance is for the accused to agree to remain in the Valley for a specified period of time without being pursued or harmed by the aggrieved party. A fine or restitution is frequently included if the offense was severe enough - often in the form of favors to the aggrieved party's power bloc.

This has lead to friction of course, predominantly with those parties who do -not- have a representing body in the area. The Red Court in particular severely dislikes the Tribunal (which, given as our next storyline concerns the start of the red court war...)