Duels.
"A tradition older than peace, reborn with every insult."
In a land where written law is patchy, courts are slow, and justice favors the rich, duels in Everwealth have long served as a brutal, ceremonial alternative, half tradition, half spectacle. These are not mindless brawls but battles of consequence, waged in front of witnesses to resolve disputes of honor, law, vengeance, or political slight. Sometimes they are fair. Often they are not. But always, they are binding. While the format and legality of duels differ from noble halls to back-alley dueling pits, all carry the same unspoken truth: in Everwealth, words may wound, but blades settle the matter. From ancient ritual to rogue invention, duels exist in every social stratum, from a sanctioned match between two noblemen debating land claims, to a weathered gunslinger calling out a rival in the ghost-lit square of a half-dead town.History
Dueling predates most formal governments in Everwealth, with origins stretching back to the Origin Age when tribal leaders fought under ritual moonlight for dominance. In the Civil Age, the tradition was absorbed into the noble class, where rules were codified, at least among those with the power to pretend at civility. After The Great Schism, when society fractured and law lost its teeth, dueling was reborn: not just as an elite privilege, but as a populist expression of justice, survival, and pride. Guns, spells, claws, words, blades, all could be weapons in the ring. For all its cruelty and chaos, the duel remains. A whispered invitation in the hall. A chalk circle drawn in a tavern. A gun laid on the table, and a nod. No matter how high the walls, how complex the laws, or how thick the armor, Everwealth still believes in the duel.
Execution
The challenged sets the terms: weapon type, time, place, and rules. The challenger accepts or forfeits, often at great social or legal cost. In noble duels, seconds are named, rules officiated, and duels may be to first blood, surrender, or death. In the wild? It's simpler. Two people face each other, and only one walks away. Victory resolves the matter permanently, no court will question a death from a sanctioned duel... unless the duel itself was rigged.
Components and tools
Duels in Everwealth vary wildly depending on social class, region, and motive, but all duels draw from a deep tradition of symbolic, and lethal, tools.
- Weapons of Choice: The challenged party chooses the weapon, blades, guns, bare fists, or even magic. Ancestral swords, custom-engraved pistols, or heirloom staves are not uncommon.
- The Dueling Circle: Often drawn in chalk, carved into dirt, or even laid out with salt or crushed bone.
- The Witness Cloth or Crest: In formal duels, a neutral observer presents a guild or city crest as a mark of legitimacy. Some use a colored cloth to signal the start and end.
- Seconds’ Satchels: Nobles often bring seconds bearing medical supplies, ledgers of challenge terms, and in some cases, documents of immunity.
- Personal Tokens: In rural or outlaw regions, participants may wager tokens, necklaces, tattoos, rings, ensuring the duel carries personal cost.
Participants
- The Challenger: The one who issues the challenge, publicly or privately, often with a weapon, a glove, or a single word: “Circle.”
- The Challenged: Retains the right to choose the terms of engagement. In corrupt noble courts, this can create deadly traps for dissenters.
- Seconds: Trusted individuals who oversee fairness, bear witness, and may intervene only if explicitly stated in the rules.
- The Arbiter: In official duels, especially among nobles or guild members, an appointed magistrate, priest, or neutral noble may serve as judge. In backwater towns, this may simply be the bartender.
- The Crowd: Whether peasants in the mud or elites in grandstands, spectators are often as important to a duel's outcome as the fighters themselves, reputations are made and ruined in their eyes.
Observance
There is no singular calendar for duels in Everwealth, but several patterns have emerged across regions:
- Noble Duels: Typically held at dawn, considered a neutral hour when reason might yet prevail. Formal invitations and three days’ notice are customary, though not always honored.
- Military Duels: Often occur in the evenings or between battles, as a release of internal tensions within units.
- Outlaw or Wild Duels: Happen whenever they must, on sight, by torchlight, during storms, or at high noon.
- Religious Observance: Some faiths, particularly those with warlike deities, observe dueling feasts or blood rites annually, in which ceremonial duels are staged or sanctified.
- Lunar Significance: In parts of Kibonoji and rural Everwealth, the duel beneath the ghost moon is a rare but revered event, believed to grant divine favor (or damnation) to the victor.
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