Lawless Territories
Lawless territories are swaths of land, space, city districts, or other territories where the law cannot reach or has a minimal or overwhelmed presence. Fictional wastelands, wilderness regions, borderlands, contested territories or even sections of fictional cities may be lawless areas. Bandits, gangs, pirates, or other world appropriate criminal factions may operate freely in these regions or with minimal consequences for their actions. Corrupt officials may be rampant. Protection may only come at a price, hired in the form of mercenaries, hired guns, smugglers, and others offering their services to the highest bidder. Black markets, drug dens, bars, brothels, and other illicit places may be present. Lawless territories are an opportunity to explore the fictional laws of a world and what narratives occur when those laws are absent.
| Synonyms: Provinces, sectors, districts, borders, lands, zones, states, countries |
| Example Mythonyms: the Midnight District, Sector II, the Rimlands |
| Territories |
Archetypes
Overview
Lawless territories are an opportunity for worldbuilders to explore the narratives that occur and the places that develop when people are left to the themselves. Depending on the world and genre, this may mean a return to a more primal nature, with bands of marauders or gangs simply preying on the weak. Or it could result in communities being forged that seek to protect themselves rather than relying on the non-existent or erratic law presence. In this case, there may be forts and walled towns.
Cartography
Lawless territories are often located in inhospitable regions, in the slums, or in peripheral territories like borderlands. They are often separated from other territories or places. They may be walled off, they may reside on a different city level or different district, or they may be otherwise removed from where ‘civilized people’ live.
Factions
Criminal factions are the major factions in lawless territories. Warlords, gangs, marauders, smugglers, and mercenaries may all be present depending on the world type and genre.
In worlds ruled by fascist or evil factions, political refugees, oppressed factions, and resistance factions may be forced to operate in lawless territories.
History
The history behind why a territory is a lawless place can be nuanced or straightforward. A collapsed civilization may lead to pockets ruled only by the strongest sword or most powerful fleet. Quarantine zones or contested zones may be lawless simply because law enforcement does not want to step foot in those locations or cannot. And the slums may be lawless because of a host of socioeconomic factors.
If the territory devolved into a lawless space, there may be ruins and abandoned structures remaining from a previous era.
Frontier Justice
The people living in a lawless setting may have developed their own, perhaps creative, means to ensure people follow the social code and punish those that do not. Dungeons, hanging cages, torture chambers, and other brutal locations may be in use.
