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Old 01-31-2018, 11:00 AM   #1
ericthered
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Default Caucus Belli

If you are in Banestorm Atlante, Do not read this!
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I have some PC's who are running a small city state. They are very diplomatic in nature, and doing a good job at being friends with all of their neighbors. One of the neighboring rulers has decided he wants to have a war with them. Unfortunately, he needs a Caucus Belli to make it look like he's not just grabbing power. The two cultures essentially made friends while his back was turned, and both were bane-stormed in the location about three months ago.

What can he use to start his war?
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Old 01-31-2018, 11:06 AM   #2
Kesendeja
 
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Default Re: Caucus Belli

Manufacture "evidence" that its their fault that the city state was relocated.
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Old 01-31-2018, 11:09 AM   #3
johndallman
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Default Re: Caucus Belli

How believable does this need to be? Who is in a position to interfere if the casus belli is not truthful?

If the answer is "nobody," as was often the case historically, there's no big problem, and he can just accuse them of trying to murder him by poison or the like.
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Old 01-31-2018, 11:12 AM   #4
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Well, there's always the old frame-up job trick. Then there's finding a guy who can make a legal claim to control the city, and your coming in to restore their government. Then there's starting a rebellion and coming to the rebellion's aid. If the neighbours share a religion, you could claim the city's full of heathens or Heretics or whatever and invade.
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Old 01-31-2018, 11:48 AM   #5
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Default Re: Caucus Belli

He can also create a forgery of a document granting him sovereignty over part of their territory and then try to enforce his legal rights. That's a traditional way to establish a casus belli.

He could also claim that whatever document made them friends is invalid for some reason, and therefore whatever issues it claimed to resolve are still valid and going to war is the only way to secure his rights. Henry V does this early in the play, by claiming that the laws that excluded him from the French succession were improperly applied, and he is legally the King of France and the guy on the throne in Paris is a pretender.
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Last edited by mlangsdorf; 01-31-2018 at 01:53 PM.
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Old 01-31-2018, 11:58 AM   #6
ericthered
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Default Re: Caucus Belli

Quote:
Originally Posted by johndallman View Post
How believable does this need to be? Who is in a position to interfere if the casus belli is not truthful?

If the answer is "nobody," as was often the case historically, there's no big problem, and he can just accuse them of trying to murder him by poison or the like.
There is a clan of wood elves and a clan of sea elves that could get involved, though there is a decent chance they will do so anyways, regardless of proof.

He's most concerned about his own people. Particularly his second in command of civilian affairs and his court magician, who have gotten to know their neighbors well. There is some worry about the general populace, but those two are the main ones.
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Old 01-31-2018, 12:26 PM   #7
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Default Re: Caucus Belli

Nit: the phrase is casus belli (literally cause of war). I'm not sure what a caucus belli would be (long time since I studied latin and caucus isn't latin anyway), possibly a council of war?

In any case, this is typically a political problem, not a legal one; the usual solution is to just manufacture evidence. His problem, if he has one, is that a war that's unpopular with the people he rules may get him removed as a ruler, so he needs to sell the war to the people (or at least the people who matter).
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Old 01-31-2018, 12:55 PM   #8
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Default Re: Caucus Belli

Does the leader have any covert resources?
If the leader might stage a highly suspicious event that puts the other citystate firmly in the frame. Then the leader sends the most antiwar people in his city to investigate under the auspices of "you are ones most able to sort this situation out without it developing into a war" then the investigators end up dead or out of the picture......
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Old 01-31-2018, 01:55 PM   #9
johndallman
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Default Re: Caucus Belli

Quote:
Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
He's most concerned about his own people. Particularly his second in command of civilian affairs and his court magician, who have gotten to know their neighbors well. There is some worry about the general populace, but those two are the main ones.
Presumably he wants to retain their services, but convince them the war is justified? If he were willing to dispense with them, the easiest answer would be that they were conspiring with the other kingdom to dispose of him.

Does he have any actual justification for a war other than power and land?
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Old 01-31-2018, 02:08 PM   #10
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Default Re: Caucus Belli

In the Middle Ages it was customary to use convoluted arguments of feudal law that makes the war sound like a real estate suit, which in a sense it was. Sometimes there was enough similarity in the law of each country to make it believable and if not, that is what lawyers are for. A modern might ask Edward the Third, "What the heck do you think you are doing brutalizing peasants for the sake of YOUR petty quarrels with the King of France." But it took differently in Medieval times, and of course would in Banestorm.
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