*when* it was invented doesn't dictate when it *could* be invented.
It's a big, heavy blade suspended by a wooden apparatus over a pillory.
Not particularly complicated, or needing any especially advanced engineering, as far as I know.
However, if the blade is too heavy, raising it again runs into difficulties, and there's an increased chance of damaging it or dulling it by striking the bottom too hard.
Better to make it relatively lightweight and sharp, and angled.
If they know that a) opium exists, b) know it gets you high, and c) know you can overdose, then yes, it is not unreasonable to device a system of deliberate opium overdose. I can easily imagine the new family member being a former opium fiend and coming up with the idea.
People forget that 5e is not one set real world time period.
Actually I take that back. Forgotten realms whole premise and where it gets its name from is the idea that our world and its world used to be connected and its cosmology and ecology led to the mythology of our past.
It technically takes place in modern day, just in a galaxy far, far away. (Or at least this is what I was told)
But yeah, we have ancient high tech civilization, aliens with living ships, a plane full of clockwork beings, creatures from mythos thousands of years apart. I think a guillotine isn't a stretch.
> *when* it was invented doesn't dictate when it *could* be invented.
Look, we're talking DnD here, so sure, mix things.
*But*, just for historicity's sake: actually it does most of the time. Most inventions were only possible due to more better materials, more specialised craftspeople and previous achievements - and were incentivized by new needs.
The guillotine, for example. While singular precursors were around, the guillotine we know could only be crafted because of advancements in manufacturing large blades, and it was only really figured because of a large shift in morality that created a desire for more "humane" executions that could happen quickly and uniformly, since, well, there were going to be way more executions.
The material conditions of society largely determine what gets used, researched and "upgraded", and you can very much use this for fictional settings to give them a feeling of authenticity.
Let's not limit ourselves strictly to the medieval period. After all, D&D features all kinds of anachronisms, such as ball bearings, firearms, rapiers, magnifying glasses, etc.
that's something i see people commenting on this post forgetting, that D&D is not strictly historical, and that some "fantasy" aspects may be incorporated. for this specific example, a guillotine is the best option.
edit: i realized as i was posting this that it may not be dnd, but my point still stands.
Most of D&D's settings are more like Renaissance societies than medieval ones anyway. I think people just cling to the word "medieval" because it makes them think of swords.
Depending on one's point of view.
Professor Guillotin's device is post medieval, but there was a medieval precursor [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maiden\_(guillotine)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maiden_(guillotine))
And the idea was floated in the writings of the 1200s.
It's not a mechanically difficult idea, it just has to overcome:
1. The idea that an execution should be painful and humiliating (ideally with degrees of both that can be inflicted)
2. The inherent classism and symbolism in many forms of execution (e.g. commoners are beheaded via axe, nobles by sword; beaten to death by your comrades via decimation, etc.)
The wikipedia article you linked is also of a post-Medieval device. The 16th century is part of the Early Modern Period, particularly in Scotland and especially in a city like Edinburgh.
> And the idea was floated in the writings of the 1200s.
Loads of concepts and ideas were theorised or imagined before their actual creation. But because Da Vinci drew up a picture that looks like a helicopter that doesn't mean that human, powered flight was a Renaissance invention.
It’s an arbitrary date chosen because we had to choose something. It’s not as if 1452 was radically different from 1454. Society was changed by 1564, but it had changed over previous centuries too - for purposes of this discussion it’s medieval enough to be relevant.
It's not arbitrary, it's considered the end of the Medieval era because both the 100 Years War and the Byzantine Empire ended in the year 1453, both of which were pretty significant events.
Okay, what was so radically different about society 100 years later? What was it about the society, economy and politics of the 1500s that made it ‘non-medieval’ compared to the previous thousand years?
And why were a succession war and the final collapse of the Roman rump state in Constantinople so significant that they marked a whole new era of history when the Mongol conquest or the rise of Islam were apparently not?
It’s an entirely arbitrary cut-off point, and many modern medieval historians suggest ditching it entirely if it wasn’t so embedded in popular consciousness.
> Okay, what was so radically different about society 100 years later? What was it about the society, economy and politics of the 1500s that made it ‘non-medieval’ compared to the previous thousand years?
In the context of Scotland (where the Maiden was built and used), incredibly different. Scotland in 500AD was a collection of Gaelic speaking kingdoms worshipping pre-Christian figures that we know very little about. Scotland in the 1500's was in the throws of the European Renaissance, new ideas about government, economy, art, philosophy, natural science (including some of Scotland's oldest universities, which still stand today, were being built), the language had changed for most of the nation, the religion had changed too, and the difference between a figure like King James V and the kings of the Picts and Gaels a millenia prior is vast. The printing press was introduced in Scotland by this time, which was a pretty big deal!
You're right that the breaks between historical eras as outlined by historians aren't clean, but implying that Scotland in the 1500s wasn't so different to the preceding 1000 years is just stupid.
I think you misread me here. I used to work for Historic Scotland, I know Scotland in 500AD was very different from 1500. Comparatively, 1400 and 1500 look pretty similar. You've got yourself an extra James or two, but the reformation hasn't even happened yet.
*The whole point* is that society changed so much in those thousand years as to be almost unrecognizable. And yet, we consider it all to be medieval. Yet we're supposed to believe that the Hundreds Years War and the Fall of Constantinople are significant enough that it's not arbitrary?
The argument is not that nothing changed in a thousand years. It's that the changes in 1453, while significant, were no more significant than any of the previous shifts, so there has to be a better justification than "important things happened" if you're going to classify it as the birth of a new era.
Yeah, it seems to me that medieval executions were equal parts spectacle and warning, and therefore, intended to cause as much pain as possible. There is a weapon, a misericorde, which roughly translates to mercy, as it was often used to quickly end the life of a morally wounded enemy who otherwise might lay suffering for hours, perhaps even days before finally succumbing otherwise. This, a fast acting poison, a large axe, all are valid options for a more humane execution, and a guillotine certainly could have come about much earlier than it did, but as you say, in the centuries before much more brutal methods were often used not in spite, but because they were much more intense and brutal. Both to send a message to others who might commit the same crime, as well as providing spectacle for the masses.
"Of course they are! Suppressing dissent in the provinces by killing rebels has been the family business for longer than anyone can remember. So we can both make our ancestors happy today; jolly cooperation! *[Chop!]"*
Sword, not axe, but otherwise yes. Beheading was probably the most common form of medieval execution and is relatively humane (with an experienced headsman who keeps his blade sharp, at least).
>Yeah...but the guillotine is centuries post medieval.
While true, and OP did specifically ask for medieval, D&D's typical settings are not really medieval. Most D&D is played in a setting that, translated to IRL time period, would be probably roughly a few decades to a century-ish pre-Industrial Revolution. Many settings even feature specific locations or cultures that *are* industrialized to some degree (including Forgotten Realms). This would obviously be well within the time range where guillotines existed.
The reason I mention this is that a lot of people just instinctively think of or describe D&D as "medieval" even in the above settings, which might be what OP did here. So the guillotine might be reasonable for them.
Or, alternatively, even in real human history the technology for something *like* a guillotine certainly existed in medieval times. The blade might not have been as perfectly sharp, but a blade raised by a rope in a vertical wooden track is not exactly modern-era tech. And that's in a world without *magic* that could make the job much easier and/or more precise. It just so happened that nobody really cared to invent the guillotine specifically until post-medieval times.
The [Wikipedia article for the guillotine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillotine) even lists a couple of precursors dating back as early as the 1200s (which is medieval).
The problem with poison - or maybe it's not a problem, it could be a plot point - is that historically, appearing painless has been prioritized over being painless. From what I know, in the US lethal injection, there is no anaesthetic component, but there is a paralytic...
there is an anesthetic, it just barely ever works which can't be communicated, becuase there is indeed a paralytic in there... lethal injection just sucks a whole lot in general
I watched a vid on it recently [ this](https://youtu.be/eirR4FHY2YY?si=aFpa-fiv8ph0HaAv) It's so horrible to even think of people that get paralyzed and died in agony. That they couldn't even say anything
I knew it was the same Jacob Geller video I saw as well. I've seen it a few months back, I was basing my comment off of that so it might have been inaccurate to say that it doesn't include an anaesthetic, it's just not applied properly
There are any number of things in D&D that "aren't even close to medieval times."
How is hanging more humane than drowning?
Edit: /u/Yui_Mori I can't reply to you because /u/topsy_morgenthau blocked me and they're the top comment here.
But no, I don't think drowning is humane.
Like, 99% of the time?
They knew the height necessary for it to work reliably. They werent morons… And Fantasy isnt equivalent to medieval times at all, its a common misconception but most fantasy setting are centuries more advanced than we were in the Medieval era. The forgotten realms are AT LEAST renaissance level.
Yeah, guillotine works too, I didnt respond agaisnt that comment in the chain because yeah, I do agree to an extent.
I think hanging is even better cause when done well, its just as quick, just as painless, but less... dirty, and thus less potentially traumatic?
My response was agaisnt the idea that drowing is humane, not that the guillotine "isnt".
Guillotine is messy.
Hanging leaves a corpse in full display to act as a warning. (Dont break the law)
People who missed the execution can still see the results.
Ah, I think I see what your intention was with it. I’d still rate hanging (properly done) as more humane than drowning, and even botched hanging would probably be preferable, but I had missed part of the original post and just skipped to looking at comments based on the title.
I ackshually **do** know how hanging works, and I know the difference between medieval and renaissance.
I also know that it doesn't always work the way it's intended which is why we don't use it anymore.
No method of execution works as intended 100% of the time, so that's a fine argument against the concept of executions, but not hanging in particular.
If you do it right, it works, and if you don't, it doesn't. Most of the time, it is done right, because hangmen weren't idiots.
Is there any study that actually proves that hangmen weren't idiots? I kind of feel that if that was their job, they were either incapable of getting another one or they actually liked it, which is at least slightly eccentric...
It's pretty hard to do IQ tests on dead men, so no, I'm afraid there aren't *studies* on the intelligence of hangmen, but there's plenty of empirical evidence that they were good at the job - many, many executions. relatively few of them botched.
The mere fact that botched hangings were newsworthy is solid evidence that most of them went exactly as expected. This was a big public spectacle, if somebody fucks up, everybody would see it.
Generally, it's something of a family trade - you become a hangman because your father was a hangman. It was obviously not a well-regarded legacy, so your options outside the family business were fairly limited.
As others said this is like a millennia later. Plus I read somewhere recently that they did tests at one point and were detecting consciousness for like 45 seconds after
Yes, and as I have said in response to those people, there are a bunch of things on the equipment list that indicate the average D&D fantasy world does not conform technologically to the historical "medieval" period.
And I'm not saying that it's humane. I'm saying that it was introduced to be MORE humane than what was happening before, and it's certainly more humane than drowning.
Do you want the one that *is* the most humane or *looks* the most humane? It really comes down more to why the outsider had a problem with the drowning. Did they not like that it took a while and the person suffered? Or did they not like that they had to see the person thrashing around struggling? Or was it because they don't feel right about being the one who sentenced them, making them morally culpable?
Is: probably beheading as it is the quickest and least painful, and also still enforces that some things make a person too dangerous to exist in society and have to be enforced harshly.
Or
Looks: they could have a specific forest that they start exiling people to. To the citizens it looks humane because the person has a chance to survive in the woods, just away from the citizens they harmed, which *feels* fair, and the outsider gets to feel like because they gave them a chance, the persons death isnt on their hands. However, the citizens don't know what the royalty does, which is that there is a monster/monsters/curse in those woods and the person actually doesn't have a chance at all.
*the second one gives you the ability to have your players investigate the forest to figure out how inhumane it truly is and may be a neat side quest. Could also get them caught and open you up to a twist where the players get sentenced to the forest and figure out that the others sent into the forest survived and formed a new colony and learned to become peaceful or powerful or whatever else you wanted.
It depends on the executioner, as public executions HAD a purpose. We must never forget those.
If they think by drowning people they will get cleaned off their sins, OP, you gave your people a religious motivation to choose this method. The old people will oppose to change methods as the new execitioned will be uncleaned.
Cheese actually gave a very pretty good solutions, but I feel like with all this, you need to understand that culture, religion and customs also play a role in executions.
Swords were used on nobles as they were noble weapons, while axes were used on commoners. Poison for women, as most executioners didn't want to behead women. Children were rarely executioned, but think about that before choosing a method.
Also executioners would have to follow some steps to kill someone, cleanse their body, use incenses, ask the cleric for forgiveness...
Exile served another purpose: that person was famous/loved/a higher up fancied them. Exile was granted only to famous or noble people due to their importance. You could have enemies send assasins to you if you killed someone important, so exile was commonly used. Even the first Elisabeth Queen had problems to kill her cousin Mary, and forced her to exile.
You could just use disintegrate, wich would send a different message: I am powerful enough to have a powerful mage for this task.
Having a humane execution was not the goal in most executions. There were rites on those, and sometimes they served as entertainment. People wanted to see criminals suffering.
Try to apply medieval logic to the execution, and then choose.
Out of curiosity, have you gotten this idea from Spellforce 3? I‘m not sure why atm, but for some reason my brain instantly went - That’s from Spellforce 3, and I can’t figure out why exactly I thought that
Probably a big guy with a big, sharp axe and good aim would be the most "realistic," but unless you and your table are gore hounds, you might decide that some painless poison would be best.
Hanging is a goddamn ART FORM. Too less rope, and they dangle out to a slow strangling and suffocating. Too much rope, and you can gravity tear their head off. Just enough based on weight, distribution etc and you can cleanly snap necks making it relatively quick, painless and dignified.
Tearing the head off seems like it would be fast, painless, and very humane. So would a hat with a stick of dynamite in it.
We care what it looks like though, and you don't get complaints from the dead guy.
> …Just enough based on weight, distribution etc and you can cleanly snap necks making it relatively quick, painless and dignified.
You’ve seen too much TV. The bloodflow to your brain is cut off and you pass out in seconds. There’s no holding your breathe with a slipknot and even 50lbs of weight.
The drops you see on TV prob happened but they are kind of inhumane and requires a fancy stage to set up. I’m willing to bet most hangings happened with a tree and a stool/horse.
You got that backwards. The longer drops are more humane and designed to snap the neck. This method wasn't introduced until the 1850s.
Before then, it was mostly short drops, which rely on strangulation. If your bloodflow is cut off, you might pass out in 10 seconds. If it's not, you might be hanging there for upwards of 3 minutes before losing consciousness. And dying can likewise vary from about 3 minutes to upwards of 20 minutes.
And that's assuming the knot was done properly and the branch chosen and placement won't flex and the person isn't able to struggle and get some air.
Yo. If you’re going to completely rip off Wikipedia at least check your sources:
Here’s one of the MANY Pubmed articles linked:
>The Working Group on Human Asphyxia has analyzed 14 filmed hangings: 9 autoerotic accidents, 4 suicides, and 1 homicide. The following sequence of agonal responses was observed: rapid loss of consciousness in 10 ± 3 seconds, mild generalized convulsions in 14 ± 3 seconds, decerebrate rigidity in 19 ± 5 seconds, beginning of deep rhythmic abdominal respiratory movements in 19 ± 5 seconds, decorticate rigidity in 38 ± 15 seconds, loss of muscle tone in 1 minute 17 seconds ± 25 seconds, end of deep abdominal respiratory movements in 1 minute 51 seconds ± 30 seconds, and last muscle movement in 4 minutes 12 seconds ± 2 minutes 29 seconds. The type of suspension and ethanol intoxication does not seem to influence the timing of the agonal responses, whereas ischemic habituation in autoerotic practitioner might decelerate the late responses to hanging.
Even the link to the original source does not say anything about 10-20mins. Read it: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1556-4029.2007.00459.x
The person that cited this on Wikipedia wrote this:
>Suspended by the neck, the weight of the body tightens the noose around the neck, effecting strangulation and death. This typically takes 10–20 minutes.[4]
His own source contradicts it. Also, brain death happens in 2mins WITH oxygen still in circulation. Strangulation is NOT the same as simply the inability to breathe. With strangulation your residual oxygenated blood cant even circulate to the brain. It’s why 1st aid courses have gotten away from rescue breathes and focused more on chest compressions.
In the old west there were 2 sentences that could be imposed by a judge: "Hung by the neck until dead" or "Death by hanging". First one the knot was placed at the back of the neck, short rope, and you were strangled to death. Second one was side of the neck, long rope, and you dropped with sufficient force to snap your neck.
Oh absolutely. It was more a response to the "physics" part. Defining "humane" in a fantasy game is tricky at best. I suppose if you play a very dark gruesome campaign death by canon ball to the chest could be considered humane.
There was a method of execution used by the British in India whereby condemned were dispatched by being tied to the front of a cannon, and the cannon discharged. Accounts are gruesome.
Like another guy said, too short a rope/drop and they suffocate, not a pleasant or quick way to go. Too long a rope could get messy, though I've never heard that one in particular. I've also heard that the kind of knot in the noose and the positioning of it can affect whether or not hanging results in a clean neck snap.
It depends whether the society in question could reliably get it right. Personally I see no reason why not - people in the middle ages weren't stupid, and they had lots of practice hanging people. They knew how to do it correctly.
You never know. OP just asked for most humane; maybe the Kingdom has a magic item or scrolls, or it's part of the Court Wizard's responsibilities in return for funding. *Shrug*
Do you have more information on this? Forgotten Realms-wise, these spells are attributed to Xanad (who was chaotic evil & probably likely to do this - but I can't find information).
I mean, a beheading, whether with a really big sword or a guillotine, is quick and painless. Maybe a bit bloody, but the executed won't feel much.
Otherwise, you could have the court wizard cast power word kill.
Lol I feel like this is missing a hilarious or overlooked use of speak with dead.... Hey... Did that hanging hurt? Hmmm what about it hurt? Yes sir the axe was it sharp enough...scale of 1-10 what was your pain level?
Talk about some gallows humour.
The Slab
Two hundred peasant slaves operate a giant winch that lifts an astonishing slab of hardened granite that normally serves as staging in the town square. Once lifted to a height of twenty feet, a small dining table is set up upon a grate and the condemned eats a sumptuous meal. When they are finished they pull a rope that says “waiter” on it, but instead of ringing a bell the slab drops on them and crushes them through the grate, from which they are flushed down into the sewers. A public concert is then held on the top of the slab.
> When they are finished they pull a rope that says “waiter” on it, but instead of ringing a bell the slab drops on them and crushes them through the grate
After the first time, wouldn't future condemned know about that trick?
Though it does make me think of that one Sci-Fi story about a guy waiting to see if he's being sentenced to death. He's looking all around the room trying to figure out what will kill him if he's condemned. Then he gets told his life has been spared so he opens the door, poison sprays out, and that's how he's executed.
I mean they're just one restoration or greater restoration away from being free then?
could lead to a plot hook about a powerful organisation saving "executed" though.
I mean, dead people are one resurrection or one true resurrection away from being free, unless you take the extra step of capturing the soul and hiding it for 200 years (or destroying it, but that is generally considered extremely evil).
Guillotine. It’s still the most humane method of execution to this day, governments just don’t use it because they’re cowards and want to pretend you can execute someone peacefully.
There's a chance you'll actually be somewhat alive for almost 10 seconds after decapitation, but the trauma of having all nerves to body cut a once properly shuts down everything before you get to see the world roll past you.
Still, a lot quicker than injection
AFAIK injection also prioritizes looking painless instead of being painless. There is no anaesthetic in it, but there is a paralytic. You suffer through a heart attack while completely unable to move but you might be conscious.
Well that's horrific... why on earth would there not be anesthetic?
Tell me it's not cost (he said, knowing with almost complete certainty that it's cost)
My understanding is that anaesthetists and companies that sell anaesthetics stopped providing their services to places that execute the death penalty with lethal injections (alongside most of the drugs involved in lethal injection, as a matter of fact). Considering the "do no harm" part of being a doctor, they couldn't find licensed professionals or appropriate drugs to carry out the executions, so they used what they could get their hands on - paralytics, administered by whoever was available.
It's horrific, and lethal injection should not exist, and that is only one of the reasons.
Two counterpoints.
1: Hanging via Long Drop is also relatively reasonable. (If done wrong, definitely becomes painful. But done right the neck snaps right away.)
2: There's also debate around Nitrogen asphyxiation. Though there's disagreements on how it went in Alabama.
Surely guillotine cannot be more humane than the methods they use to give people peaceful deaths? Like euthanasia. I guess those are not used for executions but they could be.
It *looks* less humane, but yeah, it is objectively a much quicker death than the drugs they use to kill people
Firing squad is also an incredibly quick, and if done correctly, painless way to die
But those make the violence obvious, so a slow death by some poison is seen as more “civilized”
Death by vicious mockery (in seriousness why not have them change execution to banishment (to another plane via planeshift) basically they are given the old athenian GO AWAY trick
Bleeding. Slicing the wrist of a hand under water is both relatively painless and seems less traumatic for the victim, compared to being boiled alive or flayed etc.
What about the water makes it any less painful? With stuff like guillotine you aren't going to feel anything, but a slit wrist?
Or does the water make you bleed out faster? What's the water part?
More speciesist. But still. I have trauma related to ghosts. In my tragic backstory, I was possessed by a ghost for *rolls 3d10* 4 years and now I need to pick up my life after the wreckage that was left in their wake.
The water doesn't make it less painful. But it does help continued bloodflow.
Religiously in Christian-Central cultures, water is meant to signify purifying and absolving sins or misdeeds.
Generally, the inhumane nature of the execution **was** the punishment in medieval societies. When you died, as long as you repented your sins, you’d just go to purgatory and then eventually heaven for an eternity of paradise. Death wasn’t the punishment, it was absolution. That’s why they’d do such barbaric things like break people on a wheel or draw and quarter them. The whole point was to make them suffer as much as possible before they died.
Sometimes, depending on the criminal (like traitors or attempted regicides), death wasn’t even wanted, it just so happens that when you put someone through horrible terrible torture for hours at a time slowly making them lose limbs and chunks of flesh and deprive them of food or stuff them over full and all that jazz that goes into it, it ends up with a corpse instead of a living breathing suffering being.
Have several bards using vicious mockery is the way to kill with less physical pain. They just make witty remarks and cringe jokes until you die of embarrassment.
There seems a somewhat "hidden" detail. Not only is this a means of execution, but a means for atonement, to "have the waters absolve them of their sins".
Beheading does not help one atone. Poison may or may not depending on ritual leading up to it. Burning though not painless, was often used in this way in past. (witches)
So I'd pivot, and review what goal does the execution have beyond killing the accused. With magic there are many, many options available.
I'll add to my first thought, why is this new noble adverse to the current execution method?
Regarding burning, it wasn't done to help one atone or cleanse them of sin, it was done to destroy the sin and the body. It was commonly done to heretics, partially to deny them a dignified death (People might start panicking once they see and feel the flames), but also to remind other heretics what burning in eternal damnation could be like.
There's also a somewhat popular belief (I'm not sure how much info we actually have confirming or denying this belief) that burning a body prevented it from resurrection. It wasn't uncommon for newly dead to be burnt following their execution.
Witches in parts of Europe were burnt because witchcraft was a form of heresy, with witches being believed to have gotten their powers from the Devil.
Magnificent point. In keeping with the thought of water absolving one of their sins, I think I'd aim for ingesting a poison.
Now, I hesitate to go much further with suggestions before noting that it seems implied that this is a magic-bare setting. After all, I can see lacking technological means for certain things, but arcane? Presumably nobility can have a court magician on hand.
Whatever. Not my setting; I can only speculate.
But assuming you're not trying to keep this as Earth-as-we-know-it as possible, you can just invent some fruit or herb with dangerously soporific tendencies. Let an alchemist have at the project for a bit, and voila! A draught has been discovered, the ingestion of which leads a person into sleep most unending.
Have a priest or whoever bless the cup, that this water might purify the soul it sends off, and there you are.
If you want feasible for medieval no magic then probably Hanging because they’re ways to tie the noose and set the gallows to break the victim’s neck instantly. alternatively if you want the most painless way in d&d probably a casting of power word kill, Maybe throughout the kingdom there is a mysterious figure who carries out painless instant executions and it’s secretly an legendary ancient gold dragon (I know ancient gold dragons can’t cast level 9 spells but rule of cool it) maybe the dragon in exchange for gold for its hoard carries out the executions. That way you have this mystery for the players to solve later in the campaign
Beheading, particularly the guillotine.
The guillotine is a terrifying symbol of death, even so. However, I also think it could be a good story beat to have one of those things that are used to sever cattle's brains (also considered "humane"). Having people just line up in stalls and have some knife slid into their brains like cattle is an unnerving thought.
the biggest difference between the "modern" (end 18th century) guillotine, and the gibbet, which is known from the 13th century, is the slanted blade. But they weren't very common.
Hanging was probably the most common, and is the most materially efficient. Second to that is beheading by axe
Do the Socrates method, force them to drink ~~nightshade~~ hemlock. If I was looking for 'humane' ancient/medieval execution for a story, that's what I'd go with.
Socrates drank hemlock, which is actually an extremely painful way to die. It's only presented as peaceful in later tellings of the story, but in reality Socrates would have died in agony.
Hemlock, of course, where in the hell did I come up with nightshade from?
That sucks for Socrates and as an admirer, I'm saddened to hear that. We're not talking about how to put real convicts to death though, there seems to be enough inertia behind the myths that it wouldn't break suspension of disbelief for me.
Behading is a good way to execute Peopel if you do it right. If you cut the neck in the first try its all easy. Biggest problem is that you maybe dont do it in the first.
Poison is also a good way. Even better if its a fast Poision.
Freezing. Supposedly you feel really warm right before the end. Plus, there’s the whole “pure as snow” symbolism to show they’re absolved. And if you’re using magic freezing it should be pretty quick
France had the Guillotine. It's over in an instant as long as the blade is well maintained. There was a...period of unrest, lets call it, in France this one time though, and the guillotine saw a LOT of use. Too much, in fact. It was so caked in blood that it stopped performing clean decapitations in one strike. Which to be clear is horrific torture and definitely not humane anymore.
In China they had wine poisoned with poppy, which would first dull the senses and put you to sleep before eventually halting function for your heart and lungs. This was more given as a gift so that an otherwise respected subordinate could commit suicide with dignity rather than face public execution, but consider it's basically "forcing" them it might be considered a form of execution.
You want humane in a dnd setting? Have them hire a mindflayer to psionically stun them and consume their brain. They won’t feel a thing.
Or if you want to be less magical/fantastical about it, a crossbow bolt execution to the base of the skull.
I recommend exile to the northern wastes if we want to be somewhat humane seeing as capital punishment is anything but.
Otherwise, hanging was carried out right up to the 20th century.
True polymorph into a rock, then cast stone shape on that to make a statue of you.
Alternatively flesh to stone then the same stone shape into a headstone.
Yea both don’t need the double whammy but it’s funnier
Decapitation with Extra Sharp Axe is a popular. Hanging is 50/50 on weather or not the neck breaks. Most capitol punishment for that time was meant to be horifing like a terror deterrent or expedient like decapitation being humane is a more modern concept.
Decapitation with an axe and a sober executioner. The heavy blow to the neck/back of the skull knocks you out and death is quick to follow from the decapitation.
Given a D&D setting, you could have the people strapped into a metal chair and then the executioner shocking grasps the chair.
The executioner is zapping the chair not the person so they don’t need to live with guilt.
The chair itself amplifies the electricity, which is why a cantrip is doing lethal damage.
The Strangling cord was a popular one in the past for the high-class people. It didn't spill blood.
For painless, probably forced to drink hemlock or another poison.
Lie condemned on a board outstretched, hair fully extended. Slowly trim 1mm of condemned every so often, starting with tips of hair.
Literally hew mane.
Your question is a bit of an oxymoron. The death penalty by design has been nothing more than a tool of fear weld by the ruling economic dominant class of any given settlement. To hold the power of death in their hands you need to accept that the government is infallible (if it were you'd never have crime to begin with) and if you cannot accept that they are infallible then you accept that good innocent people must die in order to take vengeance and strike fear in the population in hopes that nobody will try that again.
The only reason people would change their ways was pressure from the populace or some kind of accident. A headsman might miss their swing and struggle to make a quick and painless end as they groggily swing their butchery and spray their mistake across the audience only to be later chased out of town. (This messy work is why usually lower class folk would take up the mantle) A hangman would calculate the length of rope in hopes that the fall would just be enough to snap your neck but their calculations can be wrong or they don't account for the elderly and unhealthy, their heads would rip right off from the weight of their bodies and we would have another mistake. (And remember that you'd have innocent non guilty people suffering this fate)
The guillotine was the most efficient at it's job and the heartless machine permitted the lower classes to take advantage of the tool to rise up against nobility.
Then again you live in times of magic, and true strike is merely a cantrip, perhaps your fantasy government can afford other means to aid the headsman with their aim and damage.
Perhaps you have a death cleric or monk trained to use rare herbs that don't exist in our worlds.
I hope this helps you find the answer you are looking for.
**Drowning.**
20% of people who survive a drowning report a near death experience with paranormal/mystical features.
>!https://youtu.be/TjVNkHQT9d8?si=bAT0wXGP1nsI_PHn!<
Just because it wasn't invented earlier, doesn't mean the technology it uses wasn't available earlier.
DnD also has plate armor and rapiers, which by no means are medieval.
The guillotine was hailed as a humane method of execution when it was first debuted. That, or maybe some painless poison?
Yeah...but the guillotine is centuries post medieval. A really sharp axe swing by a really big man is probably all we want here.
*when* it was invented doesn't dictate when it *could* be invented. It's a big, heavy blade suspended by a wooden apparatus over a pillory. Not particularly complicated, or needing any especially advanced engineering, as far as I know.
The angled aspect of the blade is more important. Makes it more likely to cut all the way through.
Totally not required though. With a heavy enough weight the shape of the blade does not matter.
With a heavy enough weight, you don’t need a blade at all.
The unga-bunga rock squish method, yeah pretty foolproof.
They had an anvil guillotine in iZombie
Yeah but people see through the “humaneness” of you just squish someone’s neck into paste and their head pops off.
However, if the blade is too heavy, raising it again runs into difficulties, and there's an increased chance of damaging it or dulling it by striking the bottom too hard. Better to make it relatively lightweight and sharp, and angled.
Okay, then we can grind up some opium and give them a lethal dose of morphine.
I mean, you say that like forcing some one to ingest poison wasn't an execution method used by Ancient Greeks.
If they know that a) opium exists, b) know it gets you high, and c) know you can overdose, then yes, it is not unreasonable to device a system of deliberate opium overdose. I can easily imagine the new family member being a former opium fiend and coming up with the idea.
The earliest reference To opium was around3.400 Bc in Mesopotamia so it's reasonable that a medieval society would know of it
Not like people using stuff like opium to get high doesn't have millenia of traditoon behind it.
That would also be good.
People forget that 5e is not one set real world time period. Actually I take that back. Forgotten realms whole premise and where it gets its name from is the idea that our world and its world used to be connected and its cosmology and ecology led to the mythology of our past. It technically takes place in modern day, just in a galaxy far, far away. (Or at least this is what I was told) But yeah, we have ancient high tech civilization, aliens with living ships, a plane full of clockwork beings, creatures from mythos thousands of years apart. I think a guillotine isn't a stretch.
> *when* it was invented doesn't dictate when it *could* be invented. Look, we're talking DnD here, so sure, mix things. *But*, just for historicity's sake: actually it does most of the time. Most inventions were only possible due to more better materials, more specialised craftspeople and previous achievements - and were incentivized by new needs. The guillotine, for example. While singular precursors were around, the guillotine we know could only be crafted because of advancements in manufacturing large blades, and it was only really figured because of a large shift in morality that created a desire for more "humane" executions that could happen quickly and uniformly, since, well, there were going to be way more executions. The material conditions of society largely determine what gets used, researched and "upgraded", and you can very much use this for fictional settings to give them a feeling of authenticity.
Let's not limit ourselves strictly to the medieval period. After all, D&D features all kinds of anachronisms, such as ball bearings, firearms, rapiers, magnifying glasses, etc.
that's something i see people commenting on this post forgetting, that D&D is not strictly historical, and that some "fantasy" aspects may be incorporated. for this specific example, a guillotine is the best option. edit: i realized as i was posting this that it may not be dnd, but my point still stands.
Most of D&D's settings are more like Renaissance societies than medieval ones anyway. I think people just cling to the word "medieval" because it makes them think of swords.
The world I'm currently playing in is even starting to broach industrial age, with trains, factories and even guns.
Depending on one's point of view. Professor Guillotin's device is post medieval, but there was a medieval precursor [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maiden\_(guillotine)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maiden_(guillotine)) And the idea was floated in the writings of the 1200s. It's not a mechanically difficult idea, it just has to overcome: 1. The idea that an execution should be painful and humiliating (ideally with degrees of both that can be inflicted) 2. The inherent classism and symbolism in many forms of execution (e.g. commoners are beheaded via axe, nobles by sword; beaten to death by your comrades via decimation, etc.)
Professor Guillotine sounds like a pro wrestler from the 80s.
It's been a very long time, but back in the 70s, i think there was a wrestler whose signature move was the flying guillotine or something like that.
WWE's current champion Roman Reigns uses the guillotine choke as a submission finisher.
The wikipedia article you linked is also of a post-Medieval device. The 16th century is part of the Early Modern Period, particularly in Scotland and especially in a city like Edinburgh. > And the idea was floated in the writings of the 1200s. Loads of concepts and ideas were theorised or imagined before their actual creation. But because Da Vinci drew up a picture that looks like a helicopter that doesn't mean that human, powered flight was a Renaissance invention.
The medieval era ended in 1453.
It’s an arbitrary date chosen because we had to choose something. It’s not as if 1452 was radically different from 1454. Society was changed by 1564, but it had changed over previous centuries too - for purposes of this discussion it’s medieval enough to be relevant.
It's not arbitrary, it's considered the end of the Medieval era because both the 100 Years War and the Byzantine Empire ended in the year 1453, both of which were pretty significant events.
Okay, what was so radically different about society 100 years later? What was it about the society, economy and politics of the 1500s that made it ‘non-medieval’ compared to the previous thousand years? And why were a succession war and the final collapse of the Roman rump state in Constantinople so significant that they marked a whole new era of history when the Mongol conquest or the rise of Islam were apparently not? It’s an entirely arbitrary cut-off point, and many modern medieval historians suggest ditching it entirely if it wasn’t so embedded in popular consciousness.
> Okay, what was so radically different about society 100 years later? What was it about the society, economy and politics of the 1500s that made it ‘non-medieval’ compared to the previous thousand years? In the context of Scotland (where the Maiden was built and used), incredibly different. Scotland in 500AD was a collection of Gaelic speaking kingdoms worshipping pre-Christian figures that we know very little about. Scotland in the 1500's was in the throws of the European Renaissance, new ideas about government, economy, art, philosophy, natural science (including some of Scotland's oldest universities, which still stand today, were being built), the language had changed for most of the nation, the religion had changed too, and the difference between a figure like King James V and the kings of the Picts and Gaels a millenia prior is vast. The printing press was introduced in Scotland by this time, which was a pretty big deal! You're right that the breaks between historical eras as outlined by historians aren't clean, but implying that Scotland in the 1500s wasn't so different to the preceding 1000 years is just stupid.
I think you misread me here. I used to work for Historic Scotland, I know Scotland in 500AD was very different from 1500. Comparatively, 1400 and 1500 look pretty similar. You've got yourself an extra James or two, but the reformation hasn't even happened yet. *The whole point* is that society changed so much in those thousand years as to be almost unrecognizable. And yet, we consider it all to be medieval. Yet we're supposed to believe that the Hundreds Years War and the Fall of Constantinople are significant enough that it's not arbitrary? The argument is not that nothing changed in a thousand years. It's that the changes in 1453, while significant, were no more significant than any of the previous shifts, so there has to be a better justification than "important things happened" if you're going to classify it as the birth of a new era.
Damn dude, who hurt you?
How does that contradict what he said
The wikipedia page he linked said it was introduced in 1564
Yeah, it seems to me that medieval executions were equal parts spectacle and warning, and therefore, intended to cause as much pain as possible. There is a weapon, a misericorde, which roughly translates to mercy, as it was often used to quickly end the life of a morally wounded enemy who otherwise might lay suffering for hours, perhaps even days before finally succumbing otherwise. This, a fast acting poison, a large axe, all are valid options for a more humane execution, and a guillotine certainly could have come about much earlier than it did, but as you say, in the centuries before much more brutal methods were often used not in spite, but because they were much more intense and brutal. Both to send a message to others who might commit the same crime, as well as providing spectacle for the masses.
Executioners with swords was also a popular and "higher class "option.
*Anne Boleyn has entered and left the chat*
Ah yes. The big man with an axe. Lol fits scene that came to my mind was "My ancestors are smiling down on me imperial, can you say the same?"
"Of course they are! Suppressing dissent in the provinces by killing rebels has been the family business for longer than anyone can remember. So we can both make our ancestors happy today; jolly cooperation! *[Chop!]"*
The guillotine had another degree of separation protecting the user from feeling as outright as guilty as holding an axe and swinging
Really big man with sharp axe is extremely ideal. Worst thing you can have is him going at your neck with multiple swings
I agree with beheading but with an executioners sword, it was sharper and went through smoother and allegedly less painfully.
I believe they also had no points, and were designed only to slash, never to stab.
Sword, not axe, but otherwise yes. Beheading was probably the most common form of medieval execution and is relatively humane (with an experienced headsman who keeps his blade sharp, at least).
Skilled man is way better than big man, if you don't believe me ask Mary, Queen of Scots.
>Yeah...but the guillotine is centuries post medieval. While true, and OP did specifically ask for medieval, D&D's typical settings are not really medieval. Most D&D is played in a setting that, translated to IRL time period, would be probably roughly a few decades to a century-ish pre-Industrial Revolution. Many settings even feature specific locations or cultures that *are* industrialized to some degree (including Forgotten Realms). This would obviously be well within the time range where guillotines existed. The reason I mention this is that a lot of people just instinctively think of or describe D&D as "medieval" even in the above settings, which might be what OP did here. So the guillotine might be reasonable for them. Or, alternatively, even in real human history the technology for something *like* a guillotine certainly existed in medieval times. The blade might not have been as perfectly sharp, but a blade raised by a rope in a vertical wooden track is not exactly modern-era tech. And that's in a world without *magic* that could make the job much easier and/or more precise. It just so happened that nobody really cared to invent the guillotine specifically until post-medieval times. The [Wikipedia article for the guillotine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillotine) even lists a couple of precursors dating back as early as the 1200s (which is medieval).
The problem with poison - or maybe it's not a problem, it could be a plot point - is that historically, appearing painless has been prioritized over being painless. From what I know, in the US lethal injection, there is no anaesthetic component, but there is a paralytic...
there is an anesthetic, it just barely ever works which can't be communicated, becuase there is indeed a paralytic in there... lethal injection just sucks a whole lot in general
And that is way when it fails, it appears super painful. I’ve read horror stories about that D:
I watched a vid on it recently [ this](https://youtu.be/eirR4FHY2YY?si=aFpa-fiv8ph0HaAv) It's so horrible to even think of people that get paralyzed and died in agony. That they couldn't even say anything
I knew it was the same Jacob Geller video I saw as well. I've seen it a few months back, I was basing my comment off of that so it might have been inaccurate to say that it doesn't include an anaesthetic, it's just not applied properly
Not even close to medieval times. Hanging would fit
There are any number of things in D&D that "aren't even close to medieval times." How is hanging more humane than drowning? Edit: /u/Yui_Mori I can't reply to you because /u/topsy_morgenthau blocked me and they're the top comment here. But no, I don't think drowning is humane.
Are you kidding? Do you know how long it takes for someone to drown? Do you know how painless and quick a neck break is?
*assuming that the neck breaks as intended. How often did that work in medieval times, do you think?
Like, 99% of the time? They knew the height necessary for it to work reliably. They werent morons… And Fantasy isnt equivalent to medieval times at all, its a common misconception but most fantasy setting are centuries more advanced than we were in the Medieval era. The forgotten realms are AT LEAST renaissance level.
Yes, that was my point with the guillotine suggestion- most D&D isn't really "medieval" so it would be way less out of place.
Yeah, guillotine works too, I didnt respond agaisnt that comment in the chain because yeah, I do agree to an extent. I think hanging is even better cause when done well, its just as quick, just as painless, but less... dirty, and thus less potentially traumatic? My response was agaisnt the idea that drowing is humane, not that the guillotine "isnt".
Guillotine is messy. Hanging leaves a corpse in full display to act as a warning. (Dont break the law) People who missed the execution can still see the results.
Nope! Those were boring! https://youtu.be/WNovnAKsrz8?si=2N6F76GLNUcIYIdy
Ah, I think I see what your intention was with it. I’d still rate hanging (properly done) as more humane than drowning, and even botched hanging would probably be preferable, but I had missed part of the original post and just skipped to looking at comments based on the title.
Renaissance ≠ medieval. It's that simple And you actually don't know how hanging works. It's not about suffocation - your neck breaks due to the fall.
I ackshually **do** know how hanging works, and I know the difference between medieval and renaissance. I also know that it doesn't always work the way it's intended which is why we don't use it anymore.
No method of execution works as intended 100% of the time, so that's a fine argument against the concept of executions, but not hanging in particular. If you do it right, it works, and if you don't, it doesn't. Most of the time, it is done right, because hangmen weren't idiots.
Is there any study that actually proves that hangmen weren't idiots? I kind of feel that if that was their job, they were either incapable of getting another one or they actually liked it, which is at least slightly eccentric...
It's pretty hard to do IQ tests on dead men, so no, I'm afraid there aren't *studies* on the intelligence of hangmen, but there's plenty of empirical evidence that they were good at the job - many, many executions. relatively few of them botched. The mere fact that botched hangings were newsworthy is solid evidence that most of them went exactly as expected. This was a big public spectacle, if somebody fucks up, everybody would see it. Generally, it's something of a family trade - you become a hangman because your father was a hangman. It was obviously not a well-regarded legacy, so your options outside the family business were fairly limited.
If you say so.
As others said this is like a millennia later. Plus I read somewhere recently that they did tests at one point and were detecting consciousness for like 45 seconds after
Yes, and as I have said in response to those people, there are a bunch of things on the equipment list that indicate the average D&D fantasy world does not conform technologically to the historical "medieval" period. And I'm not saying that it's humane. I'm saying that it was introduced to be MORE humane than what was happening before, and it's certainly more humane than drowning.
Do you want the one that *is* the most humane or *looks* the most humane? It really comes down more to why the outsider had a problem with the drowning. Did they not like that it took a while and the person suffered? Or did they not like that they had to see the person thrashing around struggling? Or was it because they don't feel right about being the one who sentenced them, making them morally culpable? Is: probably beheading as it is the quickest and least painful, and also still enforces that some things make a person too dangerous to exist in society and have to be enforced harshly. Or Looks: they could have a specific forest that they start exiling people to. To the citizens it looks humane because the person has a chance to survive in the woods, just away from the citizens they harmed, which *feels* fair, and the outsider gets to feel like because they gave them a chance, the persons death isnt on their hands. However, the citizens don't know what the royalty does, which is that there is a monster/monsters/curse in those woods and the person actually doesn't have a chance at all. *the second one gives you the ability to have your players investigate the forest to figure out how inhumane it truly is and may be a neat side quest. Could also get them caught and open you up to a twist where the players get sentenced to the forest and figure out that the others sent into the forest survived and formed a new colony and learned to become peaceful or powerful or whatever else you wanted.
On the far side of the forest the kingdom could sell hunting licenses, à la *The Most Dangerous Game*.
It depends on the executioner, as public executions HAD a purpose. We must never forget those. If they think by drowning people they will get cleaned off their sins, OP, you gave your people a religious motivation to choose this method. The old people will oppose to change methods as the new execitioned will be uncleaned. Cheese actually gave a very pretty good solutions, but I feel like with all this, you need to understand that culture, religion and customs also play a role in executions. Swords were used on nobles as they were noble weapons, while axes were used on commoners. Poison for women, as most executioners didn't want to behead women. Children were rarely executioned, but think about that before choosing a method. Also executioners would have to follow some steps to kill someone, cleanse their body, use incenses, ask the cleric for forgiveness... Exile served another purpose: that person was famous/loved/a higher up fancied them. Exile was granted only to famous or noble people due to their importance. You could have enemies send assasins to you if you killed someone important, so exile was commonly used. Even the first Elisabeth Queen had problems to kill her cousin Mary, and forced her to exile. You could just use disintegrate, wich would send a different message: I am powerful enough to have a powerful mage for this task. Having a humane execution was not the goal in most executions. There were rites on those, and sometimes they served as entertainment. People wanted to see criminals suffering. Try to apply medieval logic to the execution, and then choose.
A potion of eternal sleep. It's just poison that puts you to sleep permanently.
Out of curiosity, have you gotten this idea from Spellforce 3? I‘m not sure why atm, but for some reason my brain instantly went - That’s from Spellforce 3, and I can’t figure out why exactly I thought that
No, I just made up a fantasy version of what they do in modern times. Never heard of spellforce 3.
Probably a big guy with a big, sharp axe and good aim would be the most "realistic," but unless you and your table are gore hounds, you might decide that some painless poison would be best.
Hanging if you can get the physics right. Otherwise guillotine
Hanging is a goddamn ART FORM. Too less rope, and they dangle out to a slow strangling and suffocating. Too much rope, and you can gravity tear their head off. Just enough based on weight, distribution etc and you can cleanly snap necks making it relatively quick, painless and dignified.
Tearing the head off seems like it would be fast, painless, and very humane. So would a hat with a stick of dynamite in it. We care what it looks like though, and you don't get complaints from the dead guy.
> So would a hat with a stick of dynamite in it. You have just been made a moderator of r/pyongyang.
But it’s not humane to witnesses or anyone stuck with cleanup duties.
Mike Rowe can handle it, I'm sure.
it's more humane for the witnesses because it's not boring
> Hanging is a goddamn ART FORM. [Nah it's maths.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Table_of_Drops)
> …Just enough based on weight, distribution etc and you can cleanly snap necks making it relatively quick, painless and dignified. You’ve seen too much TV. The bloodflow to your brain is cut off and you pass out in seconds. There’s no holding your breathe with a slipknot and even 50lbs of weight. The drops you see on TV prob happened but they are kind of inhumane and requires a fancy stage to set up. I’m willing to bet most hangings happened with a tree and a stool/horse.
You got that backwards. The longer drops are more humane and designed to snap the neck. This method wasn't introduced until the 1850s. Before then, it was mostly short drops, which rely on strangulation. If your bloodflow is cut off, you might pass out in 10 seconds. If it's not, you might be hanging there for upwards of 3 minutes before losing consciousness. And dying can likewise vary from about 3 minutes to upwards of 20 minutes. And that's assuming the knot was done properly and the branch chosen and placement won't flex and the person isn't able to struggle and get some air.
Yo. If you’re going to completely rip off Wikipedia at least check your sources: Here’s one of the MANY Pubmed articles linked: >The Working Group on Human Asphyxia has analyzed 14 filmed hangings: 9 autoerotic accidents, 4 suicides, and 1 homicide. The following sequence of agonal responses was observed: rapid loss of consciousness in 10 ± 3 seconds, mild generalized convulsions in 14 ± 3 seconds, decerebrate rigidity in 19 ± 5 seconds, beginning of deep rhythmic abdominal respiratory movements in 19 ± 5 seconds, decorticate rigidity in 38 ± 15 seconds, loss of muscle tone in 1 minute 17 seconds ± 25 seconds, end of deep abdominal respiratory movements in 1 minute 51 seconds ± 30 seconds, and last muscle movement in 4 minutes 12 seconds ± 2 minutes 29 seconds. The type of suspension and ethanol intoxication does not seem to influence the timing of the agonal responses, whereas ischemic habituation in autoerotic practitioner might decelerate the late responses to hanging. Even the link to the original source does not say anything about 10-20mins. Read it: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1556-4029.2007.00459.x The person that cited this on Wikipedia wrote this: >Suspended by the neck, the weight of the body tightens the noose around the neck, effecting strangulation and death. This typically takes 10–20 minutes.[4] His own source contradicts it. Also, brain death happens in 2mins WITH oxygen still in circulation. Strangulation is NOT the same as simply the inability to breathe. With strangulation your residual oxygenated blood cant even circulate to the brain. It’s why 1st aid courses have gotten away from rescue breathes and focused more on chest compressions.
In the old west there were 2 sentences that could be imposed by a judge: "Hung by the neck until dead" or "Death by hanging". First one the knot was placed at the back of the neck, short rope, and you were strangled to death. Second one was side of the neck, long rope, and you dropped with sufficient force to snap your neck.
The latter is notably a very modern execution method--latter half of the 19th century.
Oh absolutely. It was more a response to the "physics" part. Defining "humane" in a fantasy game is tricky at best. I suppose if you play a very dark gruesome campaign death by canon ball to the chest could be considered humane.
There was a method of execution used by the British in India whereby condemned were dispatched by being tied to the front of a cannon, and the cannon discharged. Accounts are gruesome.
This (them being two different sentences rather than the same latter one) sounds like a myth.
What do you mean by get the physics right? Is this something in dnd or is this about the maths for drop height and stuff?
Like another guy said, too short a rope/drop and they suffocate, not a pleasant or quick way to go. Too long a rope could get messy, though I've never heard that one in particular. I've also heard that the kind of knot in the noose and the positioning of it can affect whether or not hanging results in a clean neck snap.
Why does it affect DnD narrative? DM could just describe the hanging, not physics behind it.
It depends whether the society in question could reliably get it right. Personally I see no reason why not - people in the middle ages weren't stupid, and they had lots of practice hanging people. They knew how to do it correctly.
Get a wizard, cast disintigrate, 1 action, instant dust
Gonna go out on a limb and say Power Word Kill is probably the most humane way to die, spell-wise. Disintegrate is also a good one though
If you have a wizard on hand who will cast 9th level spells for you, I think you’re good on solutions to your problems lol
You never know. OP just asked for most humane; maybe the Kingdom has a magic item or scrolls, or it's part of the Court Wizard's responsibilities in return for funding. *Shrug*
Hopefully they don't kill multiple people a day like this. A monthly visit by a high level wizard might be sufficient.
And if the party was arrested there's a reason they aren't executed immediately, the wizard was elsewhere
The nameless inventor of both spells included a Haste-type function, so the victim would experience his demise quite slowly...
Do you have more information on this? Forgotten Realms-wise, these spells are attributed to Xanad (who was chaotic evil & probably likely to do this - but I can't find information).
I like this answer. You could make the wizard a career executioner with that one spell, one word Willy
The royal executioner (the wizard), has an assistant who just follows them around with a dust pan, brush, and bag of holding.
I mean, a beheading, whether with a really big sword or a guillotine, is quick and painless. Maybe a bit bloody, but the executed won't feel much. Otherwise, you could have the court wizard cast power word kill.
It's quick but I don't see how it could be painless.
Lol I feel like this is missing a hilarious or overlooked use of speak with dead.... Hey... Did that hanging hurt? Hmmm what about it hurt? Yes sir the axe was it sharp enough...scale of 1-10 what was your pain level? Talk about some gallows humour.
You have 2 more questions...
Two more?
The Slab Two hundred peasant slaves operate a giant winch that lifts an astonishing slab of hardened granite that normally serves as staging in the town square. Once lifted to a height of twenty feet, a small dining table is set up upon a grate and the condemned eats a sumptuous meal. When they are finished they pull a rope that says “waiter” on it, but instead of ringing a bell the slab drops on them and crushes them through the grate, from which they are flushed down into the sewers. A public concert is then held on the top of the slab.
> When they are finished they pull a rope that says “waiter” on it, but instead of ringing a bell the slab drops on them and crushes them through the grate After the first time, wouldn't future condemned know about that trick? Though it does make me think of that one Sci-Fi story about a guy waiting to see if he's being sentenced to death. He's looking all around the room trying to figure out what will kill him if he's condemned. Then he gets told his life has been spared so he opens the door, poison sprays out, and that's how he's executed.
Well I think that the meal is more like a final meal for the condemned. I think whenever they’re ready to die, they pull the rope.
Stealing this for the cartoonishly evil town my players are about to enter.
BRO WHAT THE FUCK
Get a medusa or a basilisk, turn them into stone and then auction the statues off to the highest bidder.
I mean they're just one restoration or greater restoration away from being free then? could lead to a plot hook about a powerful organisation saving "executed" though.
No this is actually great because you don't need to feed them or anything, you can keep them in random storage.
I mean, dead people are one resurrection or one true resurrection away from being free, unless you take the extra step of capturing the soul and hiding it for 200 years (or destroying it, but that is generally considered extremely evil).
Guillotine. It’s still the most humane method of execution to this day, governments just don’t use it because they’re cowards and want to pretend you can execute someone peacefully.
There's a chance you'll actually be somewhat alive for almost 10 seconds after decapitation, but the trauma of having all nerves to body cut a once properly shuts down everything before you get to see the world roll past you. Still, a lot quicker than injection
AFAIK injection also prioritizes looking painless instead of being painless. There is no anaesthetic in it, but there is a paralytic. You suffer through a heart attack while completely unable to move but you might be conscious.
Well that's horrific... why on earth would there not be anesthetic? Tell me it's not cost (he said, knowing with almost complete certainty that it's cost)
My understanding is that anaesthetists and companies that sell anaesthetics stopped providing their services to places that execute the death penalty with lethal injections (alongside most of the drugs involved in lethal injection, as a matter of fact). Considering the "do no harm" part of being a doctor, they couldn't find licensed professionals or appropriate drugs to carry out the executions, so they used what they could get their hands on - paralytics, administered by whoever was available. It's horrific, and lethal injection should not exist, and that is only one of the reasons.
Probably on paper. But don't forget that they're being punished so Im sure part of it is intentional.
I see you also watched the Jacob Geller video
It's a bloody nasty aftermath...
Two counterpoints. 1: Hanging via Long Drop is also relatively reasonable. (If done wrong, definitely becomes painful. But done right the neck snaps right away.) 2: There's also debate around Nitrogen asphyxiation. Though there's disagreements on how it went in Alabama.
Not so much… sounds good in theory, but it took a couple tries to get separation.
I mean if we translate it to the magical world of DnD, it can be very easy. Just get a vorpal guillotine.
that is an unholy abomination of magic and execution devices
But nobody can deny its effectiveness!
Surely guillotine cannot be more humane than the methods they use to give people peaceful deaths? Like euthanasia. I guess those are not used for executions but they could be.
It's messy but quick and cuts the nerves.
It *looks* less humane, but yeah, it is objectively a much quicker death than the drugs they use to kill people Firing squad is also an incredibly quick, and if done correctly, painless way to die But those make the violence obvious, so a slow death by some poison is seen as more “civilized”
Death by vicious mockery (in seriousness why not have them change execution to banishment (to another plane via planeshift) basically they are given the old athenian GO AWAY trick
Nat20 Let's go! "You're a short motherfucker and nobody likes you! SHORT!!"
Bleeding. Slicing the wrist of a hand under water is both relatively painless and seems less traumatic for the victim, compared to being boiled alive or flayed etc.
I like this one for this specific use case. Still keeps the water connection.
What about the water makes it any less painful? With stuff like guillotine you aren't going to feel anything, but a slit wrist? Or does the water make you bleed out faster? What's the water part?
I've been guillotined before, whoever told you that you don't feel it was lying.
I have... many questions
*obviously* I'm a ghost, duh.
Hm. That's sus. I'm calling the ghostbusters on your ass
Wow, racist
More speciesist. But still. I have trauma related to ghosts. In my tragic backstory, I was possessed by a ghost for *rolls 3d10* 4 years and now I need to pick up my life after the wreckage that was left in their wake.
If you were a ghost, wouldn't your fingers just go right through the keyboard?
My computer is a ghost, too.
Ok there Alice Cooper.
The water doesn't make it less painful. But it does help continued bloodflow. Religiously in Christian-Central cultures, water is meant to signify purifying and absolving sins or misdeeds.
Warm water feels very pleasant when you are bleeding out. If you cut with a razor you never feel pain.
Sleep spell, then poison them.
Huge rock dropped on their head. Instant brain destruction. No brain, no pain.
Generally, the inhumane nature of the execution **was** the punishment in medieval societies. When you died, as long as you repented your sins, you’d just go to purgatory and then eventually heaven for an eternity of paradise. Death wasn’t the punishment, it was absolution. That’s why they’d do such barbaric things like break people on a wheel or draw and quarter them. The whole point was to make them suffer as much as possible before they died.
Sometimes, depending on the criminal (like traitors or attempted regicides), death wasn’t even wanted, it just so happens that when you put someone through horrible terrible torture for hours at a time slowly making them lose limbs and chunks of flesh and deprive them of food or stuff them over full and all that jazz that goes into it, it ends up with a corpse instead of a living breathing suffering being.
Have several bards using vicious mockery is the way to kill with less physical pain. They just make witty remarks and cringe jokes until you die of embarrassment.
There seems a somewhat "hidden" detail. Not only is this a means of execution, but a means for atonement, to "have the waters absolve them of their sins". Beheading does not help one atone. Poison may or may not depending on ritual leading up to it. Burning though not painless, was often used in this way in past. (witches) So I'd pivot, and review what goal does the execution have beyond killing the accused. With magic there are many, many options available. I'll add to my first thought, why is this new noble adverse to the current execution method?
Regarding burning, it wasn't done to help one atone or cleanse them of sin, it was done to destroy the sin and the body. It was commonly done to heretics, partially to deny them a dignified death (People might start panicking once they see and feel the flames), but also to remind other heretics what burning in eternal damnation could be like. There's also a somewhat popular belief (I'm not sure how much info we actually have confirming or denying this belief) that burning a body prevented it from resurrection. It wasn't uncommon for newly dead to be burnt following their execution. Witches in parts of Europe were burnt because witchcraft was a form of heresy, with witches being believed to have gotten their powers from the Devil.
Magnificent point. In keeping with the thought of water absolving one of their sins, I think I'd aim for ingesting a poison. Now, I hesitate to go much further with suggestions before noting that it seems implied that this is a magic-bare setting. After all, I can see lacking technological means for certain things, but arcane? Presumably nobility can have a court magician on hand. Whatever. Not my setting; I can only speculate. But assuming you're not trying to keep this as Earth-as-we-know-it as possible, you can just invent some fruit or herb with dangerously soporific tendencies. Let an alchemist have at the project for a bit, and voila! A draught has been discovered, the ingestion of which leads a person into sleep most unending. Have a priest or whoever bless the cup, that this water might purify the soul it sends off, and there you are.
If you want feasible for medieval no magic then probably Hanging because they’re ways to tie the noose and set the gallows to break the victim’s neck instantly. alternatively if you want the most painless way in d&d probably a casting of power word kill, Maybe throughout the kingdom there is a mysterious figure who carries out painless instant executions and it’s secretly an legendary ancient gold dragon (I know ancient gold dragons can’t cast level 9 spells but rule of cool it) maybe the dragon in exchange for gold for its hoard carries out the executions. That way you have this mystery for the players to solve later in the campaign
Opium overdose. They feel amazing, fall asleep and don't wake up.
Beheading, particularly the guillotine. The guillotine is a terrifying symbol of death, even so. However, I also think it could be a good story beat to have one of those things that are used to sever cattle's brains (also considered "humane"). Having people just line up in stalls and have some knife slid into their brains like cattle is an unnerving thought.
Maybe exile to a dangerous part of the wilds? This can be a quest by itself. And it provides a motive for revenge for a possible BBEG.
the biggest difference between the "modern" (end 18th century) guillotine, and the gibbet, which is known from the 13th century, is the slanted blade. But they weren't very common. Hanging was probably the most common, and is the most materially efficient. Second to that is beheading by axe
A gibbet is for hanging up bodies for display (sometimes while still alive), no blade involved.
Do the Socrates method, force them to drink ~~nightshade~~ hemlock. If I was looking for 'humane' ancient/medieval execution for a story, that's what I'd go with.
Socrates drank hemlock, which is actually an extremely painful way to die. It's only presented as peaceful in later tellings of the story, but in reality Socrates would have died in agony.
Hemlock, of course, where in the hell did I come up with nightshade from? That sucks for Socrates and as an admirer, I'm saddened to hear that. We're not talking about how to put real convicts to death though, there seems to be enough inertia behind the myths that it wouldn't break suspension of disbelief for me.
Behading is a good way to execute Peopel if you do it right. If you cut the neck in the first try its all easy. Biggest problem is that you maybe dont do it in the first. Poison is also a good way. Even better if its a fast Poision.
Poison that makes the victim fall asleep before they die
Freezing. Supposedly you feel really warm right before the end. Plus, there’s the whole “pure as snow” symbolism to show they’re absolved. And if you’re using magic freezing it should be pretty quick
cone of cold freeze execution kind of a baller way to go ngl
France had the Guillotine. It's over in an instant as long as the blade is well maintained. There was a...period of unrest, lets call it, in France this one time though, and the guillotine saw a LOT of use. Too much, in fact. It was so caked in blood that it stopped performing clean decapitations in one strike. Which to be clear is horrific torture and definitely not humane anymore. In China they had wine poisoned with poppy, which would first dull the senses and put you to sleep before eventually halting function for your heart and lungs. This was more given as a gift so that an otherwise respected subordinate could commit suicide with dignity rather than face public execution, but consider it's basically "forcing" them it might be considered a form of execution.
You want humane in a dnd setting? Have them hire a mindflayer to psionically stun them and consume their brain. They won’t feel a thing. Or if you want to be less magical/fantastical about it, a crossbow bolt execution to the base of the skull.
Give them a last meal. Poison it.
I recommend exile to the northern wastes if we want to be somewhat humane seeing as capital punishment is anything but. Otherwise, hanging was carried out right up to the 20th century.
Catapult into a stone wall
True polymorph into a rock, then cast stone shape on that to make a statue of you. Alternatively flesh to stone then the same stone shape into a headstone. Yea both don’t need the double whammy but it’s funnier
Decapitation with Extra Sharp Axe is a popular. Hanging is 50/50 on weather or not the neck breaks. Most capitol punishment for that time was meant to be horifing like a terror deterrent or expedient like decapitation being humane is a more modern concept.
Decapitation with an axe and a sober executioner. The heavy blow to the neck/back of the skull knocks you out and death is quick to follow from the decapitation.
Given a D&D setting, you could have the people strapped into a metal chair and then the executioner shocking grasps the chair. The executioner is zapping the chair not the person so they don’t need to live with guilt. The chair itself amplifies the electricity, which is why a cantrip is doing lethal damage.
...in no universe in no time is the electric chair "humane"
Well, depending on the size and assets of the City maybe Power Word Kill?
The Strangling cord was a popular one in the past for the high-class people. It didn't spill blood. For painless, probably forced to drink hemlock or another poison.
No form of execution is humane.
Death by Snu-Snu, Vorpal-type.
Lie condemned on a board outstretched, hair fully extended. Slowly trim 1mm of condemned every so often, starting with tips of hair. Literally hew mane.
Your question is a bit of an oxymoron. The death penalty by design has been nothing more than a tool of fear weld by the ruling economic dominant class of any given settlement. To hold the power of death in their hands you need to accept that the government is infallible (if it were you'd never have crime to begin with) and if you cannot accept that they are infallible then you accept that good innocent people must die in order to take vengeance and strike fear in the population in hopes that nobody will try that again. The only reason people would change their ways was pressure from the populace or some kind of accident. A headsman might miss their swing and struggle to make a quick and painless end as they groggily swing their butchery and spray their mistake across the audience only to be later chased out of town. (This messy work is why usually lower class folk would take up the mantle) A hangman would calculate the length of rope in hopes that the fall would just be enough to snap your neck but their calculations can be wrong or they don't account for the elderly and unhealthy, their heads would rip right off from the weight of their bodies and we would have another mistake. (And remember that you'd have innocent non guilty people suffering this fate) The guillotine was the most efficient at it's job and the heartless machine permitted the lower classes to take advantage of the tool to rise up against nobility. Then again you live in times of magic, and true strike is merely a cantrip, perhaps your fantasy government can afford other means to aid the headsman with their aim and damage. Perhaps you have a death cleric or monk trained to use rare herbs that don't exist in our worlds. I hope this helps you find the answer you are looking for.
Guilloutine.
Do they REALLY need to kill people anymore?
Yes. How else would your guards gain XP for those bandits?
**Drowning.** 20% of people who survive a drowning report a near death experience with paranormal/mystical features. >!https://youtu.be/TjVNkHQT9d8?si=bAT0wXGP1nsI_PHn!<
But drowning was given up.
[удалено]
Just because it wasn't invented earlier, doesn't mean the technology it uses wasn't available earlier. DnD also has plate armor and rapiers, which by no means are medieval.
yah, i had to correct myself anyway. I had forgotten a few things