Geyser Gaol
In the summer there is a small stone jail for those who are caught breaking the rules of the Sorcery Springs Geyser Basin, but in winter they are imprisoned within the warm waters themselves. No bolts or bars are needed, the cold takes the place of prison walls.
Whilst most of the visitors to the famous Sorcery Springs Geyser Basin are well behaved and only want to view the springs or take a little water from them for magical uses, there are those who break the rules. Some want to gather water from certain springs that are forbidden to the public because of their dangerous effects. Some like to throw coins and rubbish into the springs or jam up the geysers. In summer those who are caught by the Queens Rangers and cannot pay a fine spend time in a small stone jail.
In winter the jail is unheated and too cold to use, as most of the offences are hardly worthy of death or frostbite. So the prisoners are stripped to their underwear, with force if need be, and forced into a large warm spring that unlike most of them, is perfect for soaking in. The edges have places where one can stand up to ones shoulders, and the middle part is deeper. As long as the prisoners stay in the warm spring, the freezing temperatures outside will do them no harm.
There is a stone privy close to but not linked to the spring , and using it in -20C or colder is a horrible experience. Fouling the spring however will very likely get the culprit beaten and possibly killed by his or her cellmates. It is possible to sleep in the spring as anyone who has ever fallen asleep in a hot bath would know, the water is drinkable, and twice a day a Ranger comes with bread for the prisoners to eat so they wont starve. Generally the sentence is not longer then ten days unless the prisoner is awaiting trial for something really serious.
For every day spent there after the first one there is a 5% chance of falling ill and needing to defecate a lot, or getting a form of eczema that needs continual scratching to keep the itch at bay.
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? Responses (6)
This is an interesting idea, using the warm waters as a natural prison; since the prisoners are soaking wet and the temperature is so cold, as long as there's no way to get warm and dry they'd be stuck.
The bit at the end, though, seems needless to the submission itself; certainly there's some low humor possible if some poor jerk has to keep running out and subjecting himself to the frigid temperatures, but the sub could stand perfectly well without it.
How often do prisoners drown in the spring, if they fall asleep in the wrong spot? Are there any actual guards keeping an eye on it? How do they handle, say, a fire mage who could dry himself out and escape?
I'd leave out the toilet paper references. Takes away from the sub.
Better after some of the editing
Indeed!
Not in love with this one. The use of a hotsprings as a jail just seems impractical.
As an execution device it seems more likely, since in the winter the prisoners have the choice of sleeping in the water and subsequently drowning, or sleeping outside and freezing to death.
Now if there were shallow areas where one could sit down and sleep, it would be less lethal.
And I would ditch the last sentance. Defecation and eczema in my opinion add no fun to any RP and currently are the least of the prisoner's worries.
The concept of a water-hole incarceration is a good one, actually, and realistic.
Going off on a tangent here, but whatever :) It reminds me immediately of an old Shaw Brothrs Kung Fu film. As usual, a cruel old "master", takes on 4 students to make them super-duper kung fu bad-asses. Each one faces some ridiculously (:p) fun training techniques.
One of the four, was simply thrown into a huge well/pit of water and told to get out witout touching the sides. Needless to say, a few months later, water guy was able to leap onto rooftops in a single bound.
Hmm, nothing to do with this sub, but I felt like sharing :)