Modern Fantasy legal question

[Lameth]

.I need legal advice on my world. I’m running a modern game that has had a very limited and secret shadow world of the supernatural for 1000 years. Magic has been almost dead for thousands of years with only small things ale to be done but in secret and in the right alignment.

Suddenly one month ago the magic facet has been turned on, dimensions are opened, and magic has become powerful again. The shadow world is starting to spill out into the open and various groups ate trying to maintain the secrecy, but it’s only a matter time before the truth comes out and the world finds out the supernatural is real real. This is the game. The pcs are all of the newly awakened secret world and mingled into the open world. Fighting the good fight. Keeping the secret as secret as possible. Protecting the open world from supernatural dangers. Adjusting to the new secret world and it’s chaos. And preparing their piece of the world for when it all goes public in a bad way.


in the US, I want a Bill to be started as a response to what is happening and for plot. Basically odd things are happening and to the “unawakened” world , those that do not see the truth of the world due to a supernatural “fog” that hides the supernatural , it would appear that many things are starting with “odd cults or gatherings of people with occult practices, or those that appear dangerous dealing in it”. In truth this true but to the normal people thy dont know that many of these are really covens, cabals, and people practicing true magic in this new powerful world. Good or bad.

The bill would allow probable cause to trespass and investigate anyone or any place that might appear to be “dangerous occult like”. Basically it’s a bill or emergency act in pure response to paranoia that is running rampant after the massive supernatural occurrences that happened 30 days ago and are still being felt.

Where the mundane world may not have seen or remembered the truth, the mundane ripples of these things are still happening. Disappearances in the hundreds or thousands, murders, sacrificial deaths, odd cult preachers on the internet preaching their “god” or end of the world, ect.

Now imagine this law passing and being a cabal or coven trying to hide from the real world, or a wizard that is hiding in his house ...how a “concerned citizen” reports a weirdo or a bunch of “devil worshipers” down the block. Yes this is absolutely against the right of assembly and privatecy but in times of paranoia and political pressure things , bad laws happened for a time until the courts settle them out. So...thoughts? Possible? Believable?

[Stormcrow]

As you say, Congress might pass such a bill but it would be challenged in court for being unconstitutional. It would probably be ruled to violate the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure and the First Amendment right to peaceably assemble, if the government cannot explain WHY trespass and searching are reasonable, and WHY the cults are dangerous. So as long as all the supernatural stuff is secret, it can't be the subject of rights-violating laws.

So at most you might get a knee-jerk reaction by Congress and/or the executive branch before the courts put a stop to it. There would be injunctions and stays until the constitutionality of the laws could be examined. If what's going on is understood by the Chief Justice, he or she would probably fast-track any such cases. Pretty soon the government response would have to be toned down.

Now, if the nature of the crisis were to become known, the president and/or the governors could declare a state of emergency, in which case immediate and drastic measures might be taken, the effects of which might cause legal problems that take years to resolve.

[Black Leviathan]

Given the Constitutional issues of a bill like that it would likely be more like the RICO Act where a law is written to combat a perceived likely problem but empowers law enforcement to act against these occult groups specifically. If they have a high percentage of runaway children joining the group then Congress would pass a sweeping Human Trafficking Bill to Save Our Children that would coincidentally empower police and other law enforcement to bend your rights in investigating occult groups that they believe may be guilty of harboring runaways (Or worse!).

But this sort of thing doesn't actually require an act of Congress. Our civil rights are pretty flimsy when the public is scared. Homeland Security has sweeping empowerment to trample our privacy or civil rights if something falls under the very big umbrella of National Security. The FBI monitored dozens of organizations that had no criminal connections after 911 simply because of affiliations with a Islamic temple. When it was brought to light they weren't chastised for it. Your local city can pass ordinances that give detectives greater leeway to investigate occult activity under any flimsy connection to legitimate crime, giving them easier access to warrants or assurances that if they push to hard on an occult case they can count on the District Attorney to give them leeway before recommending action against them.

[Lameth]

Thank you both very much

[finn]

I think such an act by Congress (and state legislatures) would be realistic, and I think that the courts would not strike down such acts for a quite some time.

Real, evident, and powerful magic is scary. The judges would be frightened too , and likely go with the knee-jerk reaction.

I think the courts would not stay such act, and only act when innocent non-magic using people with good standing are harmed by the new act. It would take a long time for the privacy and right of assembly of real mages to be protected.

[Lameth]

Originally Posted by finn

I think such an act by Congress (and state legislatures) would be realistic, and I think that the courts would not strike down such acts for a quite some time.

Real, evident, and powerful magic is scary. The judges would be frightened too , and likely go with the knee-jerk reaction.

I think the courts would not stay such act, and only act when innocent non-magic using people with good standing are harmed by the new act. It would take a long time for the privacy and right of assembly of real mages to be protected.

Well the point of this part in the world timeline is that magic is still hidden and what the world is seeing is the spill over mixed with vague mental impressions of
What really happened. An example would be a giant earth elemental woke up during a concert (it was under the theatre) and live tv. It then simple walked into the ocean. This appeared like earthquakes and distruction. Or a cult of devil worshipers where found to holding dozens of girls and then fought on live internet feeds. 5ye used magic and occult symbols but the world only saw flame throwers and bombs they where using and not magic. Right now occult = fear and the root of dozens and dozens of “strange “ happenings in the us.

[AlexanderHowl]

An interesting alternative would be to have magic interfering with technology, so that people only have either personal experiences or word of mouth reports, so the chaos would be even greater. Since we depend on technology so much, even a few minutes of interference could have major havoc. What is more, the lack of comparable experiences would mean that the reports of the witnesses would be confusing.

For example, think of what would happen if a Fair Folk Host (proper Fair Folk, not the Grimm or Kipling version) came upon a large white nationalist rally and slaughtered all of the men because they lacked proper respect? You would only have the testimony of any children or elderly women, as the Fair Folk Hist would take any woman of childbearing age as spoils or war. Without any audio or video, authorities would only have hundreds of bodies and reports of hundreds of missing women, and a few dozen confused children and elderly women talking about angelic beings smiting the men and taking the women to Heaven.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Lameth

.I need legal advice on my world. I’m running a modern game that has had a very limited and secret shadow world of the supernatural for 1000 years. Magic has been almost dead for thousands of years with only small things ale to be done but in secret and in the right alignment.

Suddenly one month ago the magic facet has been turned on, dimensions are opened, and magic has become powerful again. The shadow world is starting to spill out into the open and various groups ate trying to maintain the secrecy, but it’s only a matter time before the truth comes out and the world finds out the supernatural is real real. This is the game. The pcs are all of the newly awakened secret world and mingled into the open world. Fighting the good fight. Keeping the secret as secret as possible. Protecting the open world from supernatural dangers. Adjusting to the new secret world and it’s chaos. And preparing their piece of the world for when it all goes public in a bad way.


in the US, I want a Bill to be started as a response to what is happening and for plot. Basically odd things are happening and to the “unawakened” world , those that do not see the truth of the world due to a supernatural “fog” that hides the supernatural , it would appear that many things are starting with “odd cults or gatherings of people with occult practices, or those that appear dangerous dealing in it”. In truth this true but to the normal people thy dont know that many of these are really covens, cabals, and people practicing true magic in this new powerful world. Good or bad.

The bill would allow probable cause to trespass and investigate anyone or any place that might appear to be “dangerous occult like”.

Such a bill would do nothing. If you've got a full scale occult panic then the authorities and the courts are already going to be regarding "Your neighbours think you are Satanists" as sufficient probable cause to search the premises for evidence of human sacrifice or drugs and poisons.

[Donny Brook]

Rather than having Congress pass a new Bill, which necessarily would come very close to an official acknowledgement of the very stuff that is supposed to be secret, you could look at how the government might stretch/adapt/abuse existing laws like the Patriot Act and others, either unofficially or through secret Executive Orders.

[Lameth]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

An interesting alternative would be to have magic interfering with technology, so that people only have either personal experiences or word of mouth reports, so the chaos would be even greater. Since we depend on technology so much, even a few minutes of interference could have major havoc. What is more, the lack of comparable experiences would mean that the reports of the witnesses would be confusing.

For example, think of what would happen if a Fair Folk Host (proper Fair Folk, not the Grimm or Kipling version) came upon a large white nationalist rally and slaughtered all of the men because they lacked proper respect? You would only have the testimony of any children or elderly women, as the Fair Folk Hist would take any woman of childbearing age as spoils or war. Without any audio or video, authorities would only have hundreds of bodies and reports of hundreds of missing women, and a few dozen confused children and elderly women talking about angelic beings smiting the men and taking the women to Heaven.

Great points! One thing....Hist? Host? What type of fairies are you referring to?