Wynncraft War Crimes

This thread is dedicated to listing and describing war crimes committed by the player throughout the Wynncraft storyline. Although there are many sources which define war crimes, I primarily use the International Committee for the Red Cross' Customary International Humanitarian Law database and their array of rules, which you may access here. Please note that customary international humantiarian law is not itself really a law but rather a streamlined amalgam and summary of what countries and conventions internationally agree upon.

1. Positoning the Pest:
   • This quest revolves around the usage of rodenticide against Cevalus' undead father. Whilst there are no specific definitions or exceptions for killing those who are, or were, dead, we may assume that (a) Cevalus' father is alive in some way; and that (b) Cevalus' father is, or at least in some way in the past was, a human or a subset of a human. Therefore, the use of chemicals against him is a violation of Rule 74 ("Chemical Weapons").
2. Elemental Exercise:
   • In stage 2 of this quest, the player must "test their fire-based weapon on the Captured Root Golem by the tree". The context of this quest is assisting Ragon in testing elements and, therefore, using them on imprisoned enemy combatants (hors de combat) is a violation of Rule 92 ("Mutilation and Medical, Scientific or Biological Experiments").
   • Additionally, the wilful murder of a hors de combat may constitute a violation of Rule 89 ("Violence to Life") specifically where it states that "Human rights treaties prohibit the 'arbitrary deprivation of the right to life'".
3. Lost Tower:
   • The criminality of this quest is subject to interpretation. In this quest, the player must retreive Laen's ancestors' book from a rotten necromancer. Some countries have a statute of limitations for theft; in the United Kingdom, for example, theft is an either-way offence meaning that it can be tried in either a Magistrates or a higher level of court. If intended to be tried in a Magistrates court, then a complaint must be made within six months of the offence happening. We cannot prove when the necromancer stole the book, though assuming that he stole it several years prior to the player coming to retrieve it, it is de facto, or possibly de jure, his property depending on interpretation. Therefore, by appropriating the book from the necromancer - who is, mind, an enemy combatant from the perspective of the player - Rule 50 ("Destruction and seizure of property of an adversary") is being violated, specifically the regulations regarding seizure.
4. The Corrupted Village:
   • By conducting military operations in the vicinity of a civilian population, the player failing to abide by Rule 24 ("Removal of Civilians and Civilian Objects from the Vicinity of Military Objectives").
5. WynnExcavation Site A, B & C:
   • By taking the crystals from each of the sources in the WynnExcavation sites, the player - in his capacity as a soldier - is violating Rule 40 ("Respect for Cultural Property").
6. Clearing the Camps:
   • In this quest, the player must kill and then decapitate three orc leaders. Irrespective of the fact that the orcs pose a threat to the player, the player still violates Rule 113 ("Treatment of the Dead") on three counts in a single quest by despoiling and mutiliating the corpses of enemy combatants.
7. Zhigt Island:
   • Despite this crime not occurring directly in battle, the player - in his capacity as a soldier and being conscious of the threat of war - can be said to commit a crime. Specifically, when leaving Tirt, a child, alone on the ship, the player violates Rule 134 ("Children") where it says that "children shall be provided with the care and aid they require".
8. The Passage:
   • By killing a tribal leader, a combatant adversary, and taking his tribe's bead the player commits a violation of Rule 40 ("Respect for Cultural Property").
9. Troubled Tribesmen:
   • When going to kill Aenara, the player may be forced to kill a thrashing root. By destroying a tree's root, the tree may become unstable and therefore unusable for civilian construction or necessary manufacture. This is not only a violation of Rule 45 ("Causing Serious Damage to the Natural Environment") but also of Rule 54 ("Attacks against Objectives Indispensible to the Survival of the Civilian Population") considering that tree wood is greatly important to the daily lives and infrastructure of the indigenous Dernel population.

Having read through most, if not all, of the Wynncraft quests, it is easy to conclude that there is not a great abundance of war crimes. Most of the questionable actions done by the player would rather constitute regular crime or, in some circumstances, come close to being classed as crimes against humanity. Regardless, howerver, I sure did have a fun 5 or so hours creating whatever the hell this is.

 

Killing the undead is not a war crime. It is your job.

 

1 undead death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic

 

you're lucky you didn't look at pre 1.20 wars.. o_o

 

ok so it is your job to commit war crimes
Also, why isnt it?

• Rule 3; Definition of Combatants: All members of the armed forces of a party to the conflict are combatants, except medical and religious personnel.
• Rule 4; Definition of Armed Forces: The armed forces of a party to the conflict consist of all organized armed forces, groups and units which are under a command responsible to that party for the conduct of its subordinates.

Thus the undead are considered combatants and should apply to any given rules. The given definition does not specify whether the armed forces must consist of live humans, or humans at all.
Also:

• Rule 113; Treatment of the Dead: Each party to the conflict must take all possible measures to prevent the dead from being despoiled. Mutilation of dead bodies is prohibited.

Each time you kill a zombie and it drops Rotten Flesh, and you pick it up and put it in your Ingredient Pouch, you are in fact committing war crimes.

 

All of this is assuming that the player is actually in a war and is the one taking action, otherwise they would just be regular crimes in which case it becomes much more gray area since we don't know anything about laws in Wynn.

1 - This one is at best manslaughter, at the time of this happening the player is a new immigrant from a war torn land and his labor and naivety was being taken advantage of. This one is hardly on the player.
2 - In our defense, who knew wood was weak to fire lol...
3 - To be fair, the necromancer attacked us first, it's not like we went there to kill him, for all he knew we were going to try and buy it off him. Also, I'm like 99% sure he was using chemical warfare against us so it kinda cancels out if you think about it.
4 - Yeah :/
5 - ...
6 - Orcs aren't human though, so we're good to kill them all we want, sorta like all those monkies who were napalmed in nam'
7 - I don't think Tirt is actually a child, I think he suffers from dwarfism, could be wrong about that tho
8 - I think killing a dude goes a little beyond a lack of respect for cultural property...
9 - To be fair, the tree is still standing and nothing actually came of it

 

Can’t violate the Geneva Conventions if Geneva doesn’t exist

 

wasn't the red crystal from C stuck in an uninhabited volcano? doubt that one at least was of any cultural importance

 

I mean it is the war of realms is it not? so yeah we are in fact war criminals.

 

Czytash literally calls him his son and as of 1.20 we can pretty easily tell his age from his new skin. He looks about 30 (czytash) so Tirt is probably a child.

I think the only violations of this rule would actually be A and D since B is in some weird cave

 

Yes, but in almost all these cases we're not actively fighting in the war, nor are the actions the player takes part of an war effort. When the player abandons a child, that ain't a war crime, it's just negligence of the regular variety because we're not leaving a kid in a warzone, he's just chilling on a boat. In the real world, there's always active wars in loads of places yet there's still a distinction between war crimes and regular crimes because for it to be a war crime, the context of war needs to be there which in most of these cases, it's not.

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Idk man, the age of the father isn't really all that important, what if his mother is 40-60 and got pregnant at 16 and that's not his real dad...

Or maybe he's actually a just child, who really knows :/

 

We got chosen by Orphion so none of this matters :D

 

• "any difference arising between two States and leading to the intervention of armed forces is an armed conflict within the meaning of Article 2, even if one of the Parties denies the existence of a state of war. It makes no difference how long the conflict lasts, or how much slaughter takes place"
• Rule 4; Definition of Armed Forces: The armed forces of a party to the conflict consist of all organized armed forces, groups and units which are under a command responsible to that party for the conduct of its subordinates.

No, it does not specify that these rules only apply to a "war". In fact, even if you or the opposing party does not consider it "war", it is still considered an armed conflict and thus subject to the conventions.

 

Anybody who uses poison builds is committing a war crime, so all Toxo users should be arrested

 

You missed the single most important part of the definition you're citing. We're not under the command of anyone who is at war and we're not fighting on anyone's behalf so by your definition, we're still not war criminals, we're just regular criminal.

If you go through the list of all the war crimes since war crimes were a thing (slightly before WW1), they have one thing in common, they're all committed by groups, only rarely being committed by individuals. Of all the recorded war crimes, only a small number have only one single person listed as responsible and in all those cases, they're generals or high ranking officials who did terrible things while doing their job. Likewise, if you look at the list of all war criminals, all of the ones with details on their trials were either generals, some other high rank in the military, political figures or something similar. Beyond that, in almost every single case, especially recently, the responsibility of war crimes falls on the country, not on the people who actually take action.

Wynn's military structure is also completely unknown to us. Being a soldier of Wynn means nothing given the fact that Wynn doesn't have a single governing body. The player doesn't report to any authority and they seemingly have no responsibilities to actually fight in the war of realms at all. The reality is, the player is a psychotic, maybe mute? Fruman immigrant, not a war criminal.

 

This has sparked quite a discussion. I will admit myself that most of the points I've made may be a bit far-reaching and extreme but, in reality, it's for laughs anyway. Though, if I were to be completely serious, there's very little room for any sort of deep or serious analysis on this subject considering that the setting of Wynncraft is obviously not one which we can link to our real-world timeline (where the principles of the war crimes listed here exist and are applied). Additionally, it may be a bit unfair of me to use real-world definitions and such for something which exists in a fictional one, because it is effectively impossible to get a 1:1 comparrison and linkage, though, of course, the Wynncraft universe doesn't have a set code of law that I may freely grab from. Really, take this post as more of a piece of humour rather than actual research, it is more of a "what sort of war crimes would the player be responsible for if real-life humanitarian laws were to be implemented in Wynncraft" (but that is obviously a very bland and boring title or introduction, so I elected not to use it).

Also, I would like to thank everyone for their criticism and feedback on this - my first actual forum thread.

 

ok then what are we doing? are we simply "taking the suggestion" of the quest NPCs? are they not commanding us to commit war crimes?

 

The people asking us to do stuff aren't working as part of whatever constitutes the Wynn army and they aren't involved in the war. They're asking us to commit regular crimes, not war crimes.

 

there was like a door and stuff in the cave so i wasnt sure if it counted or not

 

AGAIN:

• "any difference arising between two States and leading to the intervention of armed forces is an armed conflict within the meaning of Article 2, even if one of the Parties denies the existence of a state of war. It makes no difference how long the conflict lasts, or how much slaughter takes place"

They do not necessarily be involved in war. They do not have to claim to be in war. They do not have to be an army. YOU are the armed force. They are unrelated other than the fact that they give orders.