Altruist Warrant Board System
Manesten Relay System
The Altruist Alliance has the most technologically advanced warrant system in all of Materna. It is a Librarian patented technology system that expertly integrates telescanners, manesten relays, and stylus systems. It combines them in a seamless manner that every Altruist city connected to the system receives updates instantaneously after a warrant is processed, and those cities' styluses are updated within a day of processing. Their warrant system is renowned for its speed, as other warrant systems take multiple days if not weeks to update warrant boards with new information.
The system works by cities filling out a standard warrant form. There are two types: one with a picture and one without a picture. All warrants must be filled out in the same spaces, otherwise the stylus system cannot read them. The warrants are filled out with the standard information about the name, race, appearance, height range, and age range with a section about additional notes concerning their crimes. It also contains, most importantly, a warrant rating and a city/barony/county number that issued the warrant to know what county to turn the offender over to. Once the county fills out the warrant they can put the form through the telescanner connected to the warrant system. Once it goes through the telescanner, every city/barony/county connected to the system receives the warrant instantly.
After a city/barony/county receives a warrant, they put that warrant onto the silver board connected to the warrant system of that city/barony/county. Once on the silver warrant board, a solsten scanner reads all images, and the images are broadcast through a more localized manesten relay system to all the styluses connected to that system. Guards, or anyone with one of those stylus's, can access that information from anywhere within the radius of the relay system. They can look up any of the warrants by searching based on any of the categories and the corresponding description filled out on the forms.
Certain larger cities have solsten scanners at the city gates to scan the faces of people entering or exiting. These scanners compare the faces of the people on the warrant pictures, along with the hair/eye colors and race/gender listed on the particular warrant. If a person's face and description match, the solsten scanner will beep to alert the guards of the person's presence. It is to be noted that most smaller cities do not have the infrastructure to keep these scanners sufficient to guard their city gates. They typically only use such scanners at gates for rich districts or the entrance to castles or fortresses. They only bring out those scanners to other locations when actively looking for a fugitive. Even cities with those scanners, seldom have enough to cover every gate, so they rotate which gates are equipped with those scanners to keep smugglers and fugitives from guessing.
The warrant board relay system is not the only system used. They have systems to keep track of powerful magical persons, relay beacons to ask for assistance with monsters or with arresting dangerous persons, etc. Local areas have Persons of Interest Boards, that do not broadcast to other areas but can still utilize the stylus system to look people up. All of these systems are separate from the warrant board system and use separate silver boards and styluses when looking things up.
Warrant Rating System
The warrant rating system consists of a rating letter with a number. The letter designates what type of warrant it is, and the number designates how much gold a city/barony/county has promised to pay upon delivery of that individual. Depending on the warrant, the delivery of the person's body or head will also suffice to receive the monetary reward. If there is no number attached, then it means that no gold is promised for the delivery, whether the person is alive or dead.
Because of the high volume of warrants put out, in an effort to prevent the boards from being overfilled, all warrants have an expiration time. If a city/barony/county wishes to extend the warrant time past the expiration time, they must refile the claim.
Cities/baronies/counties are not always willing to pay for the return of criminals/persons of interest. Concerned citizens are allowed to put up money for a person's return, however, the person must be paid in advance, to ensure that it is there in case the person is returned. The concerned citizens may pay that sum directly to the city/barony/county, or they may put it into a trust account with a bank or lawyer to be paid to the city/barony/county upon the return of the criminal. The benefit of paying the city/barony/county directly is that it does not cost additional money outside of the processing fee. The drawback is that the money will never be returned to the concerned citizens, even if the warrant is expired or recalled by the county. If the money is put in a trust, the concerned citizens must pay an additional fee to keep or put the money in the account or trust. However, if the warrant is recalled or expires, it is returned to the citizens, besides the amount of the processing fee, which goes to the city/barony/county.
Typically if a guard catches a criminal in the course of their normal duties, the warrant fee is not paid, unless the guard is from a foreign country or the bounty money was put up by concerned citizens. In those cases, the warrant payment would go to the governmental body under which the guard was serving, and not the individual guard. If the guard is off-duty, acting in the capacity of a bounty hunter, they will receive the bounty if they are not from the city/barony/county that issued the warrant.
Lettter Rating
An alpha warrant stands for "At Your Convenience." Alpha warrants are for persons who are wanted for questioning or are not under immediate indictment. They are fulfillable only if the person is brought in alive, and lethal force is not to be used to arrest or detain them. If lethal force is used, a criminal case must be brought to trial to ensure it was self-defense. Because alpha warrants require the person to be brought in alive, sometimes alpha warrants are applied to indicted criminals if the authorities want to ensure they are brought in alive, even though this warrant is technically not supposed to be used for indicted criminals.
A beta warrant stands for "Bounty" or "No Bounty." This is applied to low-level criminals. The money is paid to the bounty hunter whether the criminal is brought in dead or alive. The warrant intends that criminals are returned alive. However, if a criminal is brought in dead, a criminal trial is not brought against the bounty hunter, unless proof is brought to show that the bounty hunter did not offer or attempt to bring the criminal in alive.
A delta warrant stands for "Dead or Alive." This is applied to high-level or dangerous criminals. The money is paid to the bounty hunter whether the person is brought out dead or alive. Delta warrants are ambivalent to how the person is brought in, and no criminal case will be brought against the bounty hunter, even if the bounty hunter acted in a premeditated fashion to kill the perpetrator.
A kappa warrant stands for "Kill on Sight" This is applied to highly dangerous criminals who are scheduled to be put to death as soon as they are returned, or who are deemed too dangerous even to attempt to hold in prison. The money is paid to the bounty hunter whether the person is brought out dead or alive. However, with a kill warrant, it is considered preferred to bring the person in dead. It is also considered a warning for people who may prefer to bring in criminals alive that it may be too dangerous to attempt to try that, or even attempt to find and kill them at all depending on the bounty hunter's individual skill level.