Septel's Lawsuit Document in Melior | World Anvil

Septel's Lawsuit

A famous lawsuit attempting to prevent the distribution of the colour purple in Garronay.

History of Purple

The colour purple was historically a colour exclusively associated with nobility and royalty due to its rarity. The colour was only available by extracting pigment from a certain species of sea snails which were both hard to obtain and to harvest from, causing the price of purple dyes and pigments to be exceptionally high.   This all changed not long after The Rupture, when rifts to foreign realms opened up all over Melior. An artist named Satrum Septel ventured through one of these rifts and discovered a species of purple beans, from which he developed a vibrant and readily available purple pigment for folks of all social classes to enjoy.  

Crying over Crayons

The nobility felt that their iconic colour was threatened and they didn't want common folk to have access to it, or wear it. They knew that they had the power and money behind them to keep a monopoly on the colour and so they wrote up a lawsuit against Septel and his Crayon company. In their haste to use the longest, most extravagant legal terms they possibly could (to try and belittle and confuse the common folk trying to read it) they accidentally overlooked a loophole in their document.  
...as such, the sale or exchange of purple hued pigments given freely or at expense is forbidden on Garronayan soil.
  Thanks to this phrasing, Satrum Septel (along with all other merchants) were still able to sell purple pigment and products across the country of Garronay and all of The Jolundrian Empire, they just needed to be sold via floating markets and trading boats staying on water in the docks of Garronay, as technically the law only applies to soil and not waters.   The law is still valid and enforceable today, but is rarely worth wasting the law enforcement's time to chase up.
Type
Manuscript, Legal
Medium
Paper
Location
Garronay
Purple Crayon
Item | Nov 30, 2022

The discovery that made purple available to the common folk of Melior.



Cover image: At the Justice of The Peace by Pieter Verhaert

Comments

Please Login in order to comment!
Jul 18, 2021 20:30 by Avalon Arcana

Yep, it's official, loopholes are the best. Feel bad for whoever accidentally made that mistake though, since the nobility and royalty probably never let him forget it. Great article :)

You should check out the The 5 Shudake, if you want of course.
Aug 5, 2021 04:00 by Laura VanArendonk Baugh

Sumptuary laws + arrogance + loophole = sweet. :D Nice work!

Powered by World Anvil