Cold Steel

Over the long history of minor conflicts, large-scale battles, subtle murders, and duels of noble warriors the cold steel of W.E.L.L. world underwent many changes and improvements. Production technology was bettering and after centuries cold steel weapons became highly-technological.

Archaic cold steel
Weaponry has always been a murder tool in the hands of soldiers, mercenaries, bandits, battle wizards. Meanwhile, there were connoisseurs who viewed weaponry as art and conductor of delicate energies, having been using it in their rituals and sacrifices.
Long and short swords, daggers, halberds, and spears – cold steel has always been improving. War needs were the reason behind it: at enclosed spaces and battlefields, against major enemies, cavalry or flying monsters. Came and went the battlefield systems, aimed at particular types of weapons and combat tasks.
During the War the cvergs were perfecting ways of processing magic crystals for magic staffs and accidentally found out that the energy could be accumulated in several types of crystals. A trained magician could use the amassed energy at his own discretion. This discovery led to creation of the first shooting staffs – spellguns, which could be given to an ordinary soldier without special magic education.

Modern cold steel
Gradually spellguns began to take the place of customary swords and halberds in daily military use. The battle tactics were also changing in accordance with the need of killing an enemy from distance.  
Nevertheless, cold steel remained irreplaceable in hand-to-hand combat. Spellguns could misfire or simply blow up in hands; had energy level of accumulators given out, soldiers would go into the assault with centuries-honored swords and spears.
Closer to the end of the war, while developing and improving conductor and accumulator technology, both alliances almost simultaneously began the work on incorporating conductive circuits into elements of cold steel. First good models came from workshops of Alliance of the Three: it were pangolins who created successful hybrids, combining the advantages of cold steel and the power of magic. That event marked the beginning of a new stage in the history of cold steel.
Today there is a great variety of types of cold steel in the W.E.L.L. world: civil, police and army. Members of criminal dynasties keep ancient bewitched weapons of their ancestors; special forces use highly-technological sword-blades, which are produced by gigantic wizard-technological corporations.
Due to incorporation of wizard-technology combat fans and whips became widely popular. The use of spell-guides and crystal accumulators has substantially increased their combat efficiency, which had been considered very low before that.

Depending on personal preferences a soldier can be armed with an energy sword or an archaic halberd, a combat fan or whip. There is a wide choice of energy gloves, power claws and casters for close combat.

Fire Arms

First examples of magic fire arms originate from classic shepherd sticks. Those were simple wooden gun-stocks with crystal-oscillators attached inside, which had ring-shaped energy accumulators on them. When activating a rod, an accumulator would give out a portion of energy to an oscillator, which would then fire it as a narrow beam or an energy clot. Those devices were far from perfect: frequent damage of conductive circuit, low-quality crystal processing, and cracks in crystals – all this led to gun failures, while occasionally it would simply blow up in the hands of a gunman. However, armies using this unreliable weapon often had a great advantage compared to those with battle wizards and soldiers armed with ordinary cold steel. It did not require knowledge in battle wizardry to shoot from this gun – all one had to do was pull a trigger.

Gradually energy weapons were modernizing, technologies of production of oscillators, accumulators, and special runes spell-guides were bettering. As of today, energy fire arms are divided in two basic types: based on short and long oscillators – casters and, correspondingly, spellguns. The division is based on the difference of length and mass of crystals, which define the power. Power and appearance of an impulse also depend on the use of various types of ammunition (accumulators) and constructive features of particular models.

Caster – compact individual fire weapon used to neutralize opposing forces within short and medium range. Depending on modification, strikes the opponent with either a narrow beam or a small energy clot.

Spellgun – individual energy fire weapon to neutralize opposing forces within short, medium and long range. Depending on modification, strikes the opponent with either a narrow beam or a small energy clot.  

With the development of technology conductive circuits (runes spells) and crystal-accumulators began to be built into cold steel as well. This is how energy cold steel emerged. When hit by this weapon, the enemy not only received physical injuries, but also magic ones. The implementation of this technology breathed new life into cold steel.

Criminal Codexi

The world of W.E.L.L. is ruled by laws. Stealing, deliberate harming and murder are to be punished.

Self-defense
The laws of the W.E.L.L. world concede a crime victim the right to self-defense. If someone attempts a theft of attacks a player, the offender is regarded as an aggressor and may be attacked by the victim without breaking the law. A player may take revenge for a particular crime just within limited time after the last hit. The victim may kill the offender only once without incriminating himself, further persecution is in police authority.
Members of a group or a clan as well as bodyguards of the victim may attack the offender with the same legitimacy as the victim.
A player may expect help from the police or occasional witnesses just in case he "lodges an action" by using a special control (an icon), that appears on the screen of the victim player.

Stolen and prohibited things
Some examples of prohibited things: stolen objects, contract for killing, books in wild magic, overdue fines.
Every stolen thing is marked with a flag "prohibited object". It is possible to get rid of this flag by "washing" it with help of a due NPC. The flag is also withdrawn if object gets back to its owner or to police.
One can use a prohibited object due to its destination, but it can be noticed and confiscated by the police. If the player's crime is ranged as a minor one (f.ex. the player himself was not involved in stealing the object, but had it in his possession) the stolen or otherwise prohibited object is seized by the police. The fine ticket will be deposited in the slot, the seized object was found in. The player receives X guilt points, but is not ranked as a criminal. Guilt points count as non-evidenced and expire with time. There are two possible ways of liquidating a ticket. The first is to go to the police and pay the fine, but in this case the player receives evidenced guilt points. The other way is to contact a criminal NPC, who demands a large fee and liquidates the fine without burdening the player with evidenced guilt points. There is no third way to remove a ticket from the slot.
If the ticket is not paid within the given period, it will be marked as prohibited, and every police officer asking the player for his ID, will be able to find it, if he decides to search the non-payer. The last is rather likely, non-evidenced guilt points may awake suspicion. The policeman will increase the fine then and prolong the term of payment. The guilt points will also be increased. If a player omits paying his tickets thrice he may be arrested and forced to pay the whole sum and even more.

Returning of stolen things
When a player by any means gets a thing into his usage that is marked as prohibited, he sees the following notification on the screen "Bearing this object is prohibited. Would you like to deliver it to the authorities?" If the player refuses, he underlies the standard regulations concerning prohibited objects. If the player agrees, the system creates a quest for him to bring the prohibited things to a police station, some particular police NPC or to their rightful owner. If the quest is not fulfilled in time the standard regulations considering usage of prohibited objects come into effect.

Search and arrest
By applying one of his basic skills a police officer can discover all the evidence available for his level that is within the outreach of this skill. (The outreach depends on the level of the skill.) Application of the same skill allows an officer to see criminal aura of players for some period of time. Yellow indicates those, who possess non-evidenced guilt points. Red shows the main suspects in the case, the policeman has evidence in.
A policeman may search the player radiating criminal aura of any colour. For this purpose he may come closer unnoticed or ask the player to stop for control. If the player keeps moving so that the distance to the policeman exceeds some limit (10-12 meters) the policeman is authorized to arrest the player. The player may also allow the policeman to search him. If any prohibited object should be found during this search, it will be arrested and the player receives a ticket. (Or is also arrested.) If the player was arrested by mistake he will receive an excuse and will be brought back to the place, where he was detained.
In course of the search the policeman gets a list of prohibited objects the suspect possesses. Anyway, the discovery of prohibited things is only possible at a proper skill level. (Specially because a member of a criminal organization may apply a skill to conceal suspect objects.) The procedure of confiscating objects is rather similar to the one of arresting characters. The objects go immediately to the police department; the owner may collect it if he contacts Lost and Found.
Professional criminals are able to notice, if they are searched/scanned and try to dispose illegal belongings before the policeman hands in the ticket.
NPC policemen, responsible for security in cities and road patrol, can also find and arrest prohibited objects about a player.
After having completed investigations and gathered the evidence that proves criminal's guilt a policeman starts the search. When the wanted person is located the officer may either call for reinforcement or make the arrest on his own.
The arrest of a character is valid in case the policeman possesses an incriminating evidence or its copy. A copy is obtainable at police stations if the evidence has been published by the officer who has found it at the crime scene.
Shortly, an arrest is made in two steps: first, the suspect should be debilitated, the stamina indicator may not exceed 10 points; second, he is apprehended and teleported to the police station. Both steps are realized with help of police skills and special police equipment that allows enfeebling and slowing down the target.