Pushing off a handy cliff is easiest - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarpeian_Rock

Quote from: S'mon;749386Pushing off a handy cliff is easiest - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarpeian_Rock

Or into an old abandoned mine shaft. The desert out behind my house has lots of them... some of them quite deep, straight down into the ground.

Quote from: Rincewind1;749374Cutting off heads is definitely ineffective, as it's actually pretty hard and tiring.

It's doable if you assign an army of head-choppers with quotas. That's what the Mongols did - each warrior might be assigned a quota of six people to decapitate after a city was taken. Line 'em up, chop 'em down a few hundred at a time. Still take all day to execute 10,000 people, but it was fastest method they had on-hand.

Basically, for those interested, it is an incursion by Pelorites from The Pale rounding up Beory "cultists and witches" and putting them to the gibbet - "If the good Duke will not curtail the activities of these apostates, we shall."

The Pale has been hankering to crush Tenh for quite a while, and sandwiched between Stonefist and the Theocracy the Tenha authorities have a hard time saving the lives of a few dozen peasants who don't recognize the state religion anyway.

Of course the Palish authorities are simply trying to destabilize the border and foment unrest among the folk who live there (and kill off those who will not convert).

Ahem, sorry, I do go on.

Quicklime?

If they think they're witches (or are using that as the cover story) is there some accepted procedure that needs to be observed? Is hanging enough to make sure the witch stays dead or does there need to be burning and/or decapitation and/or buried head first?

Quote from: jeff37923;749376Let them starve to death. Just round up a large group of peasants and trap them in an inaccessible place with no food or water.

That's the big one. Massive on a scale, and ruthlessly efficient, that it dwarfs the other options mentioned. With famine, and its handmaiden disease, you can clear out regions right quick. Everything else takes so much energy. You don't even need to round them up.

But for something a bit more unusual, Africa was known to use lye pits for executions, even some mass ones. Throw them in, too deep to escape, wait and let chemistry do its work. Horrible way to go.

I'd go for mass hangings, especially since, as pointed out, it was a long slow death; no "hangman's knot", just tie a loop around their neck, hoist them up, and watch them kick.  If you want to build a slowly dawning sense of horror goading the PCs to DO something, hard to beat it.

Whatever you decide, you want it to have entertainment value so as to draw a crowd. Much to be said for the drama of something fast, but on the other hand a long drawn out execution is better for the vendors.

Individuals for treason underwent the following.

• Drawing, hanging & quartering
• emasculation
• disembowelling,
• beheading
• (rare) flaying alive

For groups - hanging (especially) in Christian society was most common for criminals

One thing that may interest you is that barrow sites in northern Europe were often used as gallows' sites. This may add some sense of drama and horror.

Gallows' sites were also of course at crossroads or along major roads too.

Witchcraft

burning at stake (Spain & Italy)
In England and France witches were hanged as other criminals, (i.e. Chelmsford witches 1589) especially when through courts. Often burning then occurred.
Strangled & garrotted (Other parts of Britain, France, Germany, Alps); then burnt.
Beheading, then burning.
Of interest here, an entire group of Swedish witches (1630) were beheaded; then burnt.
Drowning

Most killing did not start until after 1000 CE. Widespread killings came with the beginning of the Little Ice Age/end of Medieval Climate Anomaly, so from 1350 CE. This also coincided with crop failures, barren fields, food shortages. So you could add that in the scenario too.

All good stuff, guys.  Definitely hanging.

Quote from: S'mon;749386Pushing off a handy cliff is easiest - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarpeian_Rock

Quote from: Simlasa;749388Or into an old abandoned mine shaft. The desert out behind my house has lots of them... some of them quite deep, straight down into the ground.

This has a lot of potential. Imagine the underground monsters attracted to the piles of bodies there as food.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;749395Basically, for those interested, it is an incursion by Pelorites from The Pale rounding up Beory "cultists and witches" and putting them to the gibbet - "If the good Duke will not curtail the activities of these apostates, we shall."

The Pale has been hankering to crush Tenh for quite a while, and sandwiched between Stonefist and the Theocracy the Tenha authorities have a hard time saving the lives of a few dozen peasants who don't recognize the state religion anyway.

Of course the Palish authorities are simply trying to destabilize the border and foment unrest among the folk who live there (and kill off those who will not convert).

Ahem, sorry, I do go on.

Palish authorities are going to be beholden to Pholtus.  Hanging does not sound very Blinding Light-y.

I would have them bound and killed by exposure, letting the sun's rays oversee the deed.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;749368Yeah, I think a large gibbet is the way to go.  Thanks.  Thanks to everyone in the thread, too!

Depending on where this atrocity is going to take place, a gibbet might not be needed. It was quite common to hang people en masse from castle or city walls. Like in this episode of Cadfael: One Corpse Too Many.

A few thoughts:

* The mass executions in Nantes involved custom-built barges that were designed to be scuttled.

* While "boiling oil" is a Hollywood cliche, it was far more uncommon in medieval times than people imagine.  It was quite expensive, and especially in northern Europe, hard to come by in any great quantities.  (Heated sand was far more common, and pretty effective; it got inside armor.  Heck, I've seen a reference to a defense in England using boiling ale.)

Got some questions, actually.  First off, what are we talking about here?  Executing a few dozen people, or a few hundred?  Are we talking about justice administered by a town, or by a great regional noble?  Is the perp looking to dish out a "just fate," or is the perp -- either deliberately or because he's nuts -- committing an outright atrocity?  To what degree are the locals signing off on this, or is this in shocking defiance of local custom/religious mores?  (I presume, in the event, the perp has a loyal guard force large enough to get the job done barring the intervention of powerful PCs.)

If we're talking a low-yield, "just" execution, then sure, hanging or sequential beheading would do.

If we're talking a chap looking to spread terror and make an example of people, I'd go for impaling, where the victims often lingered for days.  A Gilles de Rais-level sicko in charge, the sky's the limit.  Having groups of chained, naked victims torn apart by starving dogs, forcing family members to cut the throats of their kin (or else, demonstrably, ALL the kin will be killed), making human torches with pitch- and resin-covered bound bodies, the whole nine yards.