# medieval/fantasy type setting, would the family be notified?



## Aello (Dec 30, 2013)

There's a guard whose caught up in a prison break and will be detained by the higher authorities for questioning because of his involvement. This could take hours or days, depending on the mood of the guy in charge and when he wants to get around to it. So would some middle man think to send someone to his family with the message, or would the family be expected to come inquire after the guard when he doesn't show up after his shift? 

    Alternatively, because I haven't made up my mind how terribly this prison break will go for the establishment yet, lets say every dangerous prisoner in the dungeons escapes. Would they be sending a message to nearby off duty guards as well in order to help find the escapees or would they just stick with whose on patrol currently? I'm thinking they would be calling everyone in, however this being before the invention of telephones its taking manpower from the search to send messengers, isn't it?


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## Outiboros (Dec 31, 2013)

When a dangerous prisoner escapes, there's no such thing as 'off-duty' anymore.

Of course they would be notified. The fact that there are 'guards' on 'shifts' hints at a strongly ordered society; the fact that there are 'dungeons' hints at a medieval technology level, and as such relatively small cities. It might not be an official, but news gets around. Perhaps one of the other guards knows this guard and tells someone who knows or works for someone in his family, who would then tell the family.


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## Aello (Dec 31, 2013)

Thank you. I was just unsure of whether or not they'd view it as a loss of valuable chase time to send someone after the rest. Although, my setting is supposed to be a very large city, large enough that its divided into districts. Does that change things? My thoughts so far based on what the plot needs and what I've read is that there will be one to two more traditional type prisons in outer districts for minor crimes (people in debt and such) with a large underground dungeon beneath the major government building in the center (might as well call it a castle for now) for the more serious crimes. So there are quite alot of guards on duty at one time, but I suppose they could just start giving orders to any other castle employees they run into on the way to spread the alarm and gather the rest.


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## Outiboros (Jan 1, 2014)

Aello said:


> Thank you. I was just unsure of whether or not they'd view it as a loss of valuable chase time to send someone after the rest. Although, my setting is supposed to be a very large city, large enough that its divided into districts. Does that change things? My thoughts so far based on what the plot needs and what I've read is that there will be one to two more traditional type prisons in outer districts for minor crimes (people in debt and such) with a large underground dungeon beneath the major government building in the center (might as well call it a castle for now) for the more serious crimes. So there are quite alot of guards on duty at one time, but I suppose they could just start giving orders to any other castle employees they run into on the way to spread the alarm and gather the rest.


Ancient Rome was a city of legendary proportions, and it only had 1 to 2 million inhabitants - compare that to the Rome of today, with 3,7 million inhabitants, or a city such as Istanbul, with 13.9 million inhabitants. How much "very large" actually is depends on the time period.

As for guards and prisons - if your city is a medieval one, neither would exist in a typical fashion. There were hardly any 'guards'; no armed and armoured ones, at least. As or prisons, a minor criminal was much more likely to be humiliated in public, beaten, kicked out of the city or have bits of him cut off than to be incarcerated.


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## Staff Deployment (Jan 1, 2014)

If it's not meant to be a secret that the guard is being legally questioned, they would almost certainly inform his family. It's likely that he's the only one with a source of income, meaning that his family will be without support for as long as he's kept detained. Only in a police-state would it not occur to the governing body to disclose his whereabouts.

Of course, this doesn't have to mean sending out a messenger. They'll probably have a lot of families to inform. It's more likely that they'll send out an announcement through some sort of public forum, e.g. "Violent prisoner escapes, all off-duty guards are now on-duty, some momentarily detained for questioning, report all suspicious activity, et cetera"


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## Aello (Jan 4, 2014)

Thanks to you both. 

"Police-state", more like "Cult-state" in my story, so maybe its possible that they wouldn't inform the family. Both men and women work in the cult (children get taken away for brain washing so there's no need to keep women at home), and I wanted the wife to be informed so she could get in on the action, but maybe I'll need to actually have her get into armor and respond to the prison break before she finds out what happened. She's a guard, too, but a castle guard rather than the prisons. 

 As for the scale of the city, I'm no good with logistics and numbers hence the asking... Maybe about the size of Atlanta, with the outer neighborhoods probably being farmland? Its not taking place on earth, but another similar world, so there's no real world date to choose from. I just know that I don't want modern technology in play at all. The cult that controls it has a ton of money and influence, so I figured that prisons would be standard because they don't want new recruits seeing dead beats on the street. I did read somewhere that prisoners such as debtors could actually leave their cells and beg all day for money to pay for their legal fees. Maybe that time period is after medieval?


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## pointystar (Jan 26, 2014)

It's highly unlikely that a guard that betrays his own sovereign stay alive. Most traitors were executed at the spot during these perilous times. Even if they were incarcerated, it is highly unlikely that they would dispatch a messenger just to tell their family.


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## Morkonan (Jan 27, 2014)

Aello said:


> There's a guard whose caught up in a prison break and will be detained by the higher authorities for questioning because of his involvement. This could take hours or days, depending on the mood of the guy in charge and when he wants to get around to it. So would some middle man think to send someone to his family with the message, or would the family be expected to come inquire after the guard when he doesn't show up after his shift?



In this case, it'd be likely that fellow co-workers might inform his family, just as a matter of common course. It depends on how big the city is and where everyone lives. But, if that's not possible, it's likely someone is going to talk and word of his temporary detenction will make its way to the guard's family, even if he can't ask anyone to tell them, himself.



> Alternatively, because I haven't made up my mind how terribly this prison break will go for the establishment yet, lets say every dangerous prisoner in the dungeons escapes. Would they be sending a message to nearby off duty guards as well in order to help find the escapees or would they just stick with whose on patrol currently? I'm thinking they would be calling everyone in, however this being before the invention of telephones its taking manpower from the search to send messengers, isn't it?



They'd ring a really loud bell....  In ancient parlance, it's called the "OH @#%@^ BELL." Whenever a guard hears that, on duty or off, he grabs his gear and reports to his duty post.


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## Aello (Jan 30, 2014)

Morkonan said:


> They'd ring a really loud bell....  In ancient parlance, it's called the "OH @#%@^ BELL." Whenever a guard hears that, on duty or off, he grabs his gear and reports to his duty post.



   Oh, alarm bells.... why didn't that came to mind? Haha, thank you! That's so practical. =P


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