Knigets

The Block

The Block is a volcanic neck roughly shaped lie a rectangular block standing on small end. Used as an extreme prison by coastal kingdom. Cells are cut into the rock with barred cell doors which offer no privacy or protection from the elements. Cells are small and unfurnished. Prisoners’ families are allowed to purchase comforts for inmates at exorbitant prices and no guarantee their loved ones will actually receive the item.

The Block’s purpose is not rehabilitation, but deterrence. The threat of transfer to the Block tends to quell the rowdiest inmates and stop riots. Tales of the horrors of incarceration on the Block are standard fair in most entertainers’ performances.

Being sent to the Block is a death sentence. There is no parole or release. Escape is as close to impossible as can be engineered. The guards’ pay is based on their ability to keep prisoners alive and imprisoned, and they are paid well for success. Blockheads, as prisoners on the Block are known, face endless days of toil and drudgery. The Block was designed to break a person’s spirit without them setting foot on the site. Hardened criminals have broken down into tears and madness upon learning their fate.

In addition to engineering, The Block uses geography to thwart escape attempts. The plug is several days sail from the nearest port, and the exact location is considered a state secret. New prisoners arrive naked via a one-way teleport. The arrival point is a cage overhanging the Edge with a fall which lands in the freezing ocean water. Feisty new arrivals are left exposed to the elements and are denied sustenance till they submit to being subdued. Those who actively resist are dropped, cage and all, into the ocean below and allowed to drown.

Because of its isolation the Block is expected to be self-sufficient. The top holds the guards’ barracks and a collection of animal pens and garden plots. Greenhouse covers are placed over these during the winter to protect the crops. Water is collected and stored during rains. In times of drought prisoners are last in line. Fishing is a secondary food source. A prisoner several decades ago devised a system to use the often flooded cells to trap fish. She was rewarded with a top level cell and lived in relative luxury for the rest of her days.

Prison staff consist of approximately 24 guards and the Warden. The Block can currently hold 100 prisoners (with room to expand) but rarely surpasses 60. The staff live in a small keep on the Topside which includes the food stores and water cistern. The keep is designed to resist a siege from a prisoner uprising or pirate raid. Prison protocol is to retreat to the keep and allow the rioters to succumb to deprivation. Fraternization between guards and prisoners is a fast-track to both becoming residents in the Wet Holes. Abusing a prisoner leads to the guard becoming one.

A prisoner’s life is never comfortable but good behavior and hard work can mitigate the discomforts. Food and rewards are distributed via a point system, with more points buying priority. Working in the gardens, animal husbandry, and assisting with maintenance earn points, as does good behavior. Points can be spent to buy goat and rabbit skins for clothing and bedding, a priority place in the meal line, or better cell location. Fighting results in an immediate cell downgrade. Refusing to work places the offender last in the meal line for that day and the next. Actions which harm a guard, destroy food, or damage the Block get the inmate thrown in a Wet Hole on bread and water and the loss of all points. An inmate can try to start earning points to buy their way out after two weeks wet. They must first convince the Warden they deserve the chance.

Killing a guard or endangering the food or water supplies puts the offender in the Dunking Pit during a Death Tide. There is usually little sympathy from the Warden, guards, or prisoners for those who earn this fate.

Prisoners are shackled 24 / 7. Short leg chains connect their ankles while longer chains connect their wrists to their waist. Prisoners cannot lift their arms above their heads or move faster than a shuffle. They are allowed to bathe and launder their possessions (if any) once a month. They are not allowed near sharp objects so hair grows long and matted. Medical care is provided, but it is rudimentary and geared toward life, not quality.

Sexual relations between prisoners is forbidden and punished as fighting. Guards who allow or do not catch intimate inmates are docked pay or privileges.

The most feared punishments are the Wet Holes and the Dunking Pit. The Holes are the lowest series of cells which are on the side away from the sun and which are inundated to varying heights by incoming tides. Depending on the severity of the punishment, a prisoner may be placed in a cell which only receives a foot or two of water at high tide to a cell where the prisoner has to stand to keep their head above water. To compound the prisoners’ misery, normal cell floors have a slight slope up from the cell door to promote drainage. Wet Hole cell floors slope down to capture water. During storms or a Death Tide, the lower Holes can become death traps as wind and waves submerge the cells.

The Dunking Pit is a natural cavity in the Block whose lip is just below the water surface at high tide. Prisoners are fitted with a choke collar attached by a short chain to the lip of the Pit and at high tides have to desperately brace themselves against the wall and chain to keep their mouth and nose above the waves while not choking themselves with the collar. During Death Tides the high tides waves rise above the chain’s allowance condemning the prisoner to a slow drowning death.