The Elder Codex

Mechanics

Precedents are secret pieces of obscure law, which are collected and weaponized by Lawyers to manipulate the terms of a contract to their benefit. Precedents are meant to be collected, like spells of a wizard. Precedents are always conditional statements. To use a Precedent, the Lawyer usually needs to ensure that all the conditions of a precedent are met, or at least interpreted to be met “as written” . This makes space for sneaky role-play, side-quests for the party, lots of creativity and lawyerly arguments.

An example of a precedent:

During the Witnessing, or Signing of the Contract, if any part of the agreement is reflected in a polished surface, the price of the agreement is doubled, unless each reflection is specifically excluded.

So a Lawyer who knows this Precedent may act sneaky and introduce reflective surfaces during the signing of the contract, or their counterpart may go to great lengths to exclude every possible reflection. Another Lawyer may later use this as a loophole to argue that the contract was reflected in the eyes of the signatories…

New Precedents are learned by successfully arguing law (i.e., defending a contract, finding a way to break one). New precedents are constructed in collaboration with the Player and some rolling of the dice.

Lore

In the Ethereal Plane, the act of Agreement between entities is never casual. To speak a pact aloud is to invite the Plane itself to serve as arbiter, shaping reality to ensure that the agreement terms are fulfilled. Yet the Ethereal is fluid, and interpretation is everything. With careful argument, the Plane can be persuaded toward one meaning over another. This uncertainty gave rise to the practice of capturing agreements in meticulous contracts, attempts to anchor shifting promises before the Plane sets them into law.

Some agreements, especially the strange, paradoxical, or hotly contested ones, leave echoes in the fabric of the Plane. These echoes calcify into Precedents: remembered rulings of reality itself. Once established, a Precedent transcends any single contract, becoming a law of the Plane. Such laws are rarely sensible. They are bizarre, counterintuitive, riddled with superstition, exceptions, and contradictions. For this reason, Precedents are the most powerful tools of the Ethereal Lawyers who frame contracts and argue their cases before the Plane when conflicts (or Arguments) arise.

Precedents are never public knowledge. They are jealously guarded secrets, held as the private arsenal of each lawyer. To invoke a Precedent, the lawyer does not disclose it to their opponent; they whisper it to the Plane itself, through hidden writing, coded utterance, or ritual gesture. Thus, each lawyer assembles their own personal toolkit of laws, some used to bind contracts tighter, others to unravel them entirely. Precedents are not invented, but discovered, much as mortals uncover natural laws. Where scientists experiment, lawyers debate: each Argument is a probe into the unknown, and each ruling a revelation.

Among the many traditions of Ethereal law, the most ancient and revered is that of the Elder Tree. Its lawyers specialize in the thorny exchanges between Mortals and Ethereals. At the start of their career, each novice lawyer is entrusted with a great enchanted tome: the Elder Codex. At first, its pages are blank, but powerful magic forbids anything to be inscribed except true Precedents. When a lawyer stumbles upon a genuine discovery, the words settle into the Codex as though written by the Plane itself. Until then, the book is filled with false starts and half-formed clauses, work-in-progress rulings, broken phrases, and tantalizing gaps. To expand one’s Codex is both the lifelong pursuit and the measure of an Elder Tree lawyer’s worth.

Phases of a Contract

Every Ethereal contract follows a lifecycle of adjudication, unfolding through distinct phases. Each stage carries its own risks, opportunities, and avenues for interpretation.

Creating Precedents

Precedents are not all equal. The more powerful ones (high tier) tend to have less conditions and stronger effects, but are harder to discover. Importantly, they can be invoked in later stages of the contract, including after signing. The lower tier Precedents are usually full of conditions and exceptions and have weaker effects. The can usually be invoked in contract phases before signing.

Here are typical structures that Precedents follow based on the tier:

Precedent Examples

Procedure for Building a Precedent

  1. List 1d6 Effects starting from 1d100 roll. The player choses 1.
  2. Roll 1d6. This is how many vetoes the player gets on the conditions.
  3. Roll a 1d100 to fill in each Condition slot in the Precedent template, depending on the tier. The player may decide to veto a condition before moving to the next one, up to the number of vetoes.
  4. Roll 1d100 to get at least 1 Flavor word to incorporate into the Precedent.
  5. Lastly, adjust the Precedent to make it connected/relevant to the case that generated it.

Example Effects

Example Conditions

Example Flavor Words