Church seniority?
Okay, got a problem here. I have two paladins of Tyr at a cathedral. One is resident there, the other is passing through. The one passing through is higher ranking (barely), but the resident one has jurisdiction over the cathedral. (Both are subordinate to a higher level cleric, but that's not important right now.) The higher ranking one is a paladin/rogue and the resident is a paladin/justiciar of Tyr. (See where this is going?) The matter concerns a prisoner. The prisoner talked to the paladin/rogue on the understanding that her life would be spared at trial, but the justiciar wants to include the possibility of execution at trial anyway. If it comes down to pulling rank, does sheer seniority override, or does the justiciar's jurisdiction take precedence?
(As a side note, the paladin/rogue thinks that the justiciar too often forgets the "tempered with mercy" part of the paladin's oath of justice, and the justiciar thinks that the rogue is too lenient and possibly has a conflict of interest/corruption from his past as a street urchin. Little love lost here.)
"Courage is the complement of fear. A fearless man cannot be courageous. He is also a fool." -- Robert Heinlein
Senority or not the Justicar has to respect the other guy's promise. A Paladin's word is his bond and has a Paladin the Justicar should know this. Overriding the promise is mocking the Rogue's oath and paladinhood.
The Rogue is fully justicified in taking his prisoner elsewhere.
"Certain death, small chance of sucess, what are we waiting for?" Gimli son of Gloin
Re: Church seniority?
Well, your first problem is that you are playing in the FR. Other than that, I think the resident paladin should probably have jurisdiction but the wandering paladin can appeal to their clerical superior. I suppose the resident paladin can justify his actions by informing the prisoner that the wandering paladin was not authorized to grant clemency.
Re: Church seniority?
Yeah, cheat the prisoner, cheat the prisoner... The abbot will follow through on the clemency because of factors that the justiciar is not aware of. I already wrote them up at Monte's. I'll go copy and paste them here.
Edit: Right, here it is.
The paladin/rogue's party discovered evidence that vampires were infesting Westgate while they were still PCs in the old campaign. They shared this information with Abbot Khazar at the Abbey of the Blinding Truth, at which point he told them that he already suspected it, and that they were controlling the Night Masks on top of that.
The rest of the abbey's personnel have not been informed, though. The justiciar is convinced that they're there just to root out a particularly tough thieves' guild and wants to make an example to the criminals. As far as he knows, she's about as high up as it gets. He has absolutely no idea that the Faceless has such powerful pawns, and the abbot doesn't want anyone to know until he has proof; if the fact that the Tyrrans know about the vampires was leaked then they'd start having problems like you wouldn't believe. He can't move until he's ready, and in the meantime the justiciar is hauling in small fry like there's no tomorrow and is really happy about it. He sees this as his big chance to demoralize the thieves and doesn't want it thrown away.
So here we have a fanatical law-over-good type wanting to 1.) hang the wrong person (although she debatably deserves it for other things) who 2.) also happens to have important information that they won't get out of her once she's killed. On top of that, she's been promised her life on conditions that she's fulfilled in part.
"Courage is the complement of fear. A fearless man cannot be courageous. He is also a fool." -- Robert Heinlein
Other than that, I think the resident paladin should probably have jurisdiction but the wandering paladin can appeal to their clerical superior. I suppose the resident paladin can justify his actions by informing the prisoner that the wandering paladin was not authorized to grant clemency.
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