The Summer of the Long Knives

The Summer of the Long Knives was an incident which occurred at Camp Shababadahs near Arindell on the Greater Continent of Aren. The incident made national headlines when a riot broke out at the severely over-crowded camp.

Camp Shababadahs was infamous at the time for being overcrowded, under-staffed, and having extremely lax regulations. The Summer of the Long Knives happened when they inadvertently invited over twice as many campers as usual, most of them teenaged Necromancers who had never been to a summer camp before. They were bullied by the seasoned campers at the site, which eventually lead to a major riot.

The Summer of Long Knives

The camp's 12th season would forever be remembered as it's worst ever, up until the second to last season and the incident which closed the camp.

Camp Store

Like all summer camps at the time, Camp Shababadahs operated a small store on the premise where kids could buy batteries, soap, deodorant, candy, soda, and various other accoutrements. The store was given little oversite and run by the often quite young councilors.

By the 12th, the running of the camp store was a task delegated entirely to the camp councilors. The only directive they received from the owners was "make sure there's plenty of cheap soda and candy, kids love that" and no real over-site of the accounting. The directors provided a budget for the store and expected it to make that budget back. Since it dealt entirely in cash, this made running the store a very lucrative prospect for the young councilors.

Usually, the job went to an 18 year old who had been a junior councilor in the two years prior to being hired as a staffer(usually picked by the previous store runner who was on to greener pastures). It didn't take very many years of this for the store runners to figure out extra money could be made by dealing contraband out of the store. In a previous summer, a councilor attempted to smuggle some elicit substances in with the intention of selling them through the store. He was caught on the first day, ejected from the camp, and criminaly indicted. Future store-runners learned from his mistake and stuck to dealing in contraband that was officially legal but banned by camp directives.

This mostly consisted of gum, pornography, and knives. Small folding knives were not just allowed but actually required kit for any camper. Larger knives and fixed-blade knives were banned. Butterfly knives and switchblades(not technically illegal but widely believed to be in Arindell) were especially popular.

On the Summer of the Long Knives, the new store-runner brought with him about 400 various fixed and folding knives, mostly of the butterfly and switch variety. After the incidents of the summer the staffer admitted he actually hadn't known about the inflated numbers when he brought that many blades.

Necromancer Involvement

That year, the Necromancer Temple in New Arindell was hosting a particularly large deligation of pilgrims. A lot of the pilgrims were families coming in from off-world, with many traditions that revered nature. The Temple wanted to do something special, and attempted to contract with Camp Shababadahs to buy out the whole camp for the summer.

By this time, the camp was already regularly hosting 600 campers at a time, but reported a capacity of only 400(the laws regarding summer camps stipulated a certain ratio of campers to permanent flush toilets which Shababadahs was not meeting), and happily sold "all of their available capacity" to the temple. The necromancers mistakenly thought they were paying for exclusive use of the camp, and in fact intended to bring their own staffers and run their own programs; only making use of camp facilities.

The camp directors, meanwhile, did not explicitly agree to that, and planned to host the necromancer delegation in addition to their regular program of season-long campers. By this time the camp already had a cult-like following of repeat customers, who would have been very upset if they couldn't attend. The camp rented dozens of large tents intended for daytime-use at outdoor events, and had the wood shop knock up cots out of locally-sourced wood to cover the additional capacity.

Despite running less advertising that usual and limiting attendees to ages 9 and up for the season, the camp still sold many more slots than intended. As an additional problem, the necromancers(who did not need to obey Arindell's capacity laws) brought significantly more than the 400 campers they paid for(numbers are difficult to pin down but roughly 600 kids is the best estimate). Along with the campers, the necromancers brought along their own councilors(typically also in the 18-22 range) and several parents to assist.

The Season

The total population of Camp Shababadahs that summer ballooned from the usual 660 campers and staffers to over 1200, most of them being housed in very much substandard accommodations. Right from the start there were fights over the cabins, the necromancers were told they'd be getting them, while the returning Shababadah regulars believed they were entitled. The camp directors instituted a "first come, first serve" policy, which greatly angered the necromancers, who thought they had reserved the cabins.

Since so many more adults arrived than were expected, many of them ended up having to drive into town and buy regular camping tents to sleep in for the entire summer.

Food

Food was also an issue. Camp Shababadahs did typically to provide generous portions of decent-quality(one of the reasons the necromancers chose it), and made a token effort to continue this trend. The camp, which only had enough toilets for 400 people, made provisions to feed 800. When more than 1200 showed up, this proved to be a problem.

No one actually went hungry. The camp received it's food shipments every two weeks and was all stocked up at the start of the season, so there was plenty to eat on hand. An emergency shipment did need to be brought in early, and later meals saw the diet heavily supplemented with lima beans. The issue came from the kitchen staff. Generally a surely bunch, they were very vocal about having to prepare twice as many meals as usual. They made several disparaging comments regarding "running out of food", which fanned the flames of an already tense situation. Not helping matters, several of the senior campers began spreading rumors that they would have to resort to cannibalism(note that necromancers are especially averse to even survival cannibalism as they both believe they continue to live after their body dies, but if their body is consumed it destroys their soul).

All of this happened before the staffer running the camp store started to sell knives to anyone with the cash.

Tensions Mount, Store Stokes Flames

Due to the lowered quality of food, many campers turned to the snacks at the camp store to supplement their diets. This was a fairly usual thing for the long-time campers as, while regular food was plentiful, if you turn a bunch of teenagers loose in a candy store and don't tell them not to, they will eat mostly that.

The long-time campers tended to bring what(for a child) is a very large amount of money with them to camp. Most of the more experienced campers usually had enough to buy a soda with every dinner and a snack every day; and still be able to afford souvenirs and t-shirts. The necromancers, by contrast, were told they were going to a nature camp and not aware there would even be a store. Since many were from off-world what little cash they did have was typically in money they couldn't spend on Aren. This created quite a serious division, especially since many of the necromancers did come from wealthy temples or families and would have been well-supplied if informed.

To further complicate matters, the adults accompanying the necromancer campers(about 100 in total including parents and chaperones) were mostly relegated to the least-developed campsites and thus had to rely on the store for amenities. The store runners in turn raised prices on everything but candy and soda(the cost of which was set by the camp directors).

The councilor running the camp store was among the few staffers allowed to keep a personal vehicle on site(most of the staffers couldn't afford a car anyway and were required to be bussed in for the summer). The reasoning being that whoever ran the camp store might occasionally have to drive into town(about a 3 hour run each way) to pick up extra supplies. The staffer used this position to get anything requested, albeit for a price.

Another serious issue was crowding of the camps few available activities. In normal seasons, "Go and play unsupervised in the woods" was the most popular pastime, so the other available activities were never in high demand. Many of the necromancers expected to be doing structured activities, and their councilors tried to guide them in this. The only real response from the directors was to hastily mow a disused clearing to create an additional sports court. Though it was meant to be used for any activity, the seasoned campers claimed this very sub-standard play area was "the foot kort and told the necromancer children they were only allowed to play there(Of note: foot kort is effectively the only sport necromancers play, so even just the camp's three existing sports fields were not going to be enough for the roughly 600 necromancer children in attendance).

To combat the issue(and without the knowledge or approval of management), the camp store began making up and selling "activity passes" allowing the holder to cut in line. As the seasoned campers typically had more money, they could afford more; though many of the adult necromancers(unware it was a scam) began to pay for them for the kids as well. Because of the extremely insular nature of the camp's councilor organization, nobody working for the camp did anything to stop it(indeed, most of the activities directors either turned a blind eye or actively participated for a cut of the profits. This is as good a time as any to mention that this year, the staffers figured out they were working for considerably less than minimum wage).

The buying and selling of activity passes got even worse when rival factions within the staff started to print and sell them, and kids learned how to forge their own. It got to the point where bathroom and mess hall passes were being made, though these were difficult to enforce.

Black Market

The camp store handled most of the black market activities directly, buying supplies in a nearby town and selling them at considerable markup. The youths also engaged in a black market of their own, selling and trading contraband to each other. The seasoned campers were eager to get Ke'tcha from the necromancer campers, incorrectly believing it to be a narcotic.

Allegations of Sexual Misconduct

By about the middle of the season, the camp was awash with rumors that most of the young necromancers, particularly the girls, were trading sexual favors for sodas and candy. These rumors were heavily investigated after the fact and found to be completely baseless; having been spread by vindictive seasoned campers. The rumors were widely repeated owing to the common belief that younger necromancers are especially promiscuous. In point of fact, about half the necromancers in attendance belonged to an orthodox sect which practiced "ritualized abstinence". The others were normal enough teenagers some of whom happened to be able to raise the dead.

Despite exhaustive investigation, only one such incidence was uncovered. A 15 year old girl admitted to trading a brief kiss to a 13 year old boy in exchange for a candy bar. Neither of them were necromancers.

More Weapons

After the staffer running the store sold out of his four hundred knives, he went back to civilization to buy more. The knives, for which he paid about a wingbeat each wholesale, and which were meant to be sold for 8-10 wingbeats, were going for as high as 40. Though actual altercations were few, many campers told him they were buying a knife "to protect themselves from the body-snatchers"(a derisive term for necromancers).

Seeing the high profit margin, the staffer bought another 400 knives, as well as brass knuckles, ninja stars, and pepper spray. All to be sold at exorbitant prices from the camp store. By this time, many of the necromancers, fearing for their own safety, were starting to buy or trade for weapons. Others fashioned their own out of whatever they could find.

Camp Sanitation Issues

As previously noted, the camp had barely adequate toilets for about 400 campers, and 3 times that many were on site for the season. The shower situation was even worse, the camp had been cited multiple times for having only one shower house with heated water, and insufficient space in the cold showers provided in the outlying toilet blocks. Many necromancers in the satellite camps were forced to resort to washing in streams, which quickly became contaminated with human waste. Portable camping showers were sold(at a grievous markup) from the camp store and used by some of the adults. The outlying camps that did have toilet blocks also started to construct makeshift shower stations using water from the taps and whatever they could scrounge up.

Aside from showers and toilets, the actual camp staff became increasingly apathetic about cleaning. The kitchen was always immaculate, but the mess hall was rarely swept or mopped, and the toilet blocks in the necromancer camps(if there were any) were hardly ever cleaned. Normally the junior staffers were expected to clean bathrooms as part of their usual duties, or to organize junior councilors to do the work. That summer, this did not happen. Some of the adult necromancers in attendance(many of whom were older than the camp directors) eventually took it upon themselves to do the cleaning, but found supplies severely lacking.

Owing primarily to mismanagement, the camp's cleaning supplies were exhausted within the first month of the season. In previous seasons the camp was kept quite clean, with sweeping, dusting, and mopping done regularly. Every cabin was supplied with the necessary tools, and a huge delivery of supplies came in at the start of the season. This summer, owing to issues with the supplier, the camp only received about half of the supplies they ordered. The money was refunded and the directors intended to order more from a new supplier before what they had ran out, but this was never done. What cleaning products did make it the camp were looted, re-sold on the black market, or miss-used. One oft-cited example: the temporary tents in the outer camps had huge insect problems. The type of hand soap meant for the bathrooms was found to work as a very effective ant repellent, but only if used in very large quantities. Liquid hand soap therefore "went extinct" after about two weeks.

Payment Issues

To most of Camp Shababadahs employees, the job looked pretty good. Minimum wage in the New Arindell Greater Metropolitan Area sat at about 7 wingbeats, fifty talons an hour(in practice most low-level jobs paid 8 or 9). The camp offered a highly competitive 11 wingbeats an hour and, unlike most summer camps at the time, did not charge staffers for room and board. The councilors even got the benefit of a co-ed cabin a good ways away from the children's cabins, which had its own bathrooms with hot showers, internet access(albeit very slow and metered), and a TV to which they were encouraged to pack in game consoles. Because of the complete lack of oversight by the camp directors, the staffers cabin was treated like a clubhouse.

However, the 11 wingbeats an hour proved to be based on a 40-hour, Monday-Friday work-week. Staffers were not paid overtime, were not paid for working on weekends, and were regularly expected to put in 12-hour days. A half a day off every other week was the most they would be officially granted. Some of the more junior staffers were expected to work from dawn until dusk, 7 days a week, for the entirety of summer. A privileged few, such as Cook's Assistant Loganoff and the camp nurse, were able to negotiate reasonable salaries. The lifeguards were also paid separately for any time they spent on duty at the lake.

Unfortunately, this left the bulk of the staffers(about 35 people total), making between 3 wingbeats 19 talons and 5 wingbeats 2 talons an hour.

In previous seasons complaints were few, and most staffers didn't even do the math to work out what they were actually being paid. The camp was so lackadaisical that while they might be assigned tasks during most daylight hours, unless made to run a specific station like the craft center or the wood shop, they could take breaks whenever they pleased. For a lot of the returning junior staffers, they treated camp like a paid vacation. Many of them even used the opportunity to undergo lifeguard training(for which there was always one or two certified instructors) to make extra income in the off season. The training didn't cost anything, and was just another perk of the job.

That all changed in the Summer of the Long Knives. The huge extra influx of campers coupled with the presence of responsible adult necromancers constantly hounding the staffers to get to work led many of them to feel dissatisfied with their job. This in turn caused them to work out what they were being paid, and caused additional tensions. Many who would otherwise not have participated in the camp's black market activities happily joined in or at least condoned the practices.

Management Responses to the Poor Season

The camp was owned by the four original founders, who also served as the camp directors(none of whom had any sort of formal training in running a summer camp, indeed 3 of the 4 did not even have college educations). At the start of the season, the two older directors decided to leave, putting the entire 3-month camp in the hands of the younger two and telling them "Just try not to burn the place down. Everybody paid in advance."

Those two directors then proceeded to lock themselves in the camp office(which included a small apartment) for practically the duration of the summer, delegating the day-to-day running to the over-worked, under-paid, and often quite immature staffers. Cook's Assistant Loganoff became the defacto leader of the camp, being the most senior staffer. He was too busy trying feed the camp to do much more than dispense summary judgements or bark orders. The actual directors mostly worked on organizing shipments of supplies and bringing in extra equipment to deal with shortages.

The only serious responses from the camp directors was to hastily create an additional athletic field and to formalize the then-unofficial "KP for any infraction" punishment. To try and help with the chaos, they also deputized the junior-councilors to met out punishment. Since most of the junior councilors were really just campers themselves, they mostly used this privilege to dismiss each other from punishment and to bully other kids. Note that only non-necromancer campers were signed up as junior councilors, none of the necromancers had been offered this opportunity. Even so the process was wildly disorganized. Cook's Assistant Loganoff later commented later commented that one night over 100 kids, almost all of them necromancers, showed up for KP(the job required at the absolute most about 15).

Riot

Near the end of the season the situation became especially grim. Much of Camp Shababadahs' staff walked off the job two weeks before the end of the season when a clerical error caused their already miniscule paychecks to bounce. Believing they were not to be paid for the last two weeks, they quit in disgust. The camp store-runner used this opportunity to "quit" as well(as he was also only being officially paid 440 wingbeats a week). He absconded with the remaining money in the store as well as having his car stuffed with high-value goods he's traded for(including all of the remaining laundry detergent in the camp). That staffer would later admit he made enough in the one summer to pay for his college education. Ironically, he became a civil defense attorney.

Once the bulk of the paid staffers were gone, the junior councilors broke into and looted the camp store, making off with all the remaining good inside and spiriting them away to various cabins and caches around the camp. A group of older necromancers found out about the looting and broke in a second time, but when they saw how thoroughly the first wave had cleaned out the store, they trashed the place in retribution.

So began the imaginatively-named Night of Broken Glass, which actually took place over the course of an afternoon and saw nearly every class window in the camp shattered. Only the windows in the infirmary(which had shutters) and those of the kitchen survived. Reportedly, Cook's Assistant Loganoff stood outside the kitchen throughout the entire ordeal, smoking a cigarette and saying "Just you fucking try it," to every kid who approached with a rock.

The window-breaking spree was accompanied by a full-on riot. Fortunately most of the kids did not happen to have their knives or brass knuckles on them when the fighting broke out, and the lions share of it just involved a lot of chasing and shouting. The major hot-spots were around the woodshop, the camp store, and the councilor's cabin.

In a cruel twist of irony, it was the store-runner's decision to bring some 200 cans of pepper spray for his elicit sales that kept anyone from getting too badly injured. The pepper spray was horded mostly by the girl campers and many of the younger, smaller necromancers, all of whom showed no hesitation to use it once the fighting started. A few blasts to the face was enough to put down most attackers.

Full scale brawls did erupt, especially between factions of older necromancers and the junior councilors. Once things got heated, however, most of the fighters were willing to engage with anyone not armed with pepper spray. A lot of the injuries ended up being inflicted on non-necromancers by non-necromancers, despite initial reports to the contrary.

Credit for bringing the situation under control was given to Arkul Semketa Ruha Hai, then a mere high priest in Arindel's main temple. Blinded by pepper spray from a 12 year old necromancer girl, he walked out into the fray with his arms outstretched and began chanting call and response prayers. First the adult and then child necromancers started to respond, and then they knew they needed to get the fighting under control. The necromancers formed up into large groups, rightly assuming the scattered teenagers breaking windows and starting fights would be intimidated by superior numbers. Anyone not engaged in the fighting was brought into the center of the group for protection, while those brandishing weapons were made to lay them down. The riot, which had been going on for about six hours at that point, was brought to a close fairly quickly.

Reportedly, by the time the fighting was over, the entire came, necromancer and non alike, were gathered into a single enormous mass near the mess hall, save for Cook's Assistant Loganoff, who stamped out his cigaratte, indicated the windows, and repeated "Just you fucking try it" to the gathered group. In point of fact this account is incorrect. Loganoff was sheltering about 40 younger campers in the kitchen(the main reason for his guarding the place) and the group outside the mess hall numbered only about 300. Campers were scattered all over the facility, with more large groups on the athletic fields and many kids taking shelter in and under cabins.

Injuries

In all, over 900 adults and campers were injured in the event.

The only serious injury went to a 17 year old junior councilor, who was stabbed in the side. Despite initial claims to the contrary, it was actually another junior councilor who did the deed, due to an argument over a case of soda they were looting from the camp store. He reportedly pulled the knife out himself, and nearly bled to death in the woods. He was found by one of the necromancers and brought to the infirmary while the fighting was still going on. 23 other boys, aged 16-18, were also beaten severely as retribution for injuries inflicted on younger necromancers. The injuries were reported to be systematic, focusing primarily on the back, arms, and kidneys. Extremely painful, not causing any long-term harm. It was never proven who carried out the beatings, but many claim it was done by a group of adult necromancers. 5 other campers suffered head wounds the EMTs called "serious", but all made full recoveries.

Most of the injuries were minor, a lot of cuts and bruises. The older male necromancer campers were disproportionately likely to have received injuries, reportedly due to them being more likely to put themselves in harms way to protect their younger companions.

Injuries highest among 16-17 year old boys. Over 300 individuals had been sprayed with pepper spray.

Damage to the Camp

The councilor's cabin was burned to the ground and the camp store severely damaged. Every single window in the camp, save for those on the infirmary and those on the kitchen was shattered. The mess hall also suffered severe damage, with tables being dragged outside for form makeshift barricades and the pantry looted. Reportedly no rioters ever entered the kitchen itself, which was protected by 3 adults and provided shelter to some 40 younger campers.

Camp Closure

It was only once the riot was quelled that the camp directors(who spent the entire afternoon hiding behind a sofa in their apartment) came out and made a show of telling everyone to quiet down. This is also when police and emergency services were finally called in. The nearest town was 3 hours away and the nearest major population center another 5. It took about two hours for a single police highway patrol officer to reach the secluded camp. Even though the riot was over, he remained outside the perimeter until backup arrived another hour later. A few ambulances reached the camp around midnight and evacuated the most seriously injuries. Five EMTs remained on site to help get the remaining severe injuries kept stable while more assistance was called in.

The next morning, Cook's Assistant Loganoff organized breakfast for everyone out of the few remaining supplies. No one had eaten since about noon the day before, and most of the camp's food was destroyed in the riot. Loganoff informed the directors that after this meal they were down to 4 pallets of canned lima beans. The directors promptly announced the camp would be closed and promised to get everyone home as quickly as possible.

Nineteen fire trucks arrived that morning, having driven all night from the nearest city to assist. Apparently somewhere in the shaky communications, they got the idea that the entire camp was ablaze and a huge forest fire was emanant. The firefighters provided much-needed medical supplies to the injured campers, many of whom had had only rudimentary treatment. Among the necromancer delegation were three skilled herbalists who were able to crate poultices for those that had been pepper-sprayed. Many of the necromancer councilors, being there to accompany a years-long pilgrimage, had extensive first-aid training.

That afternoon, a contingent of marines from the TDFN arrived, also under the impression the riot was still going on they were needed to save lives. They were able to organize an airlift to evacuate all of the remaining serious injuries to the nearest hospital. The marines also provided enough rations to get everyone through the night. The camp directors were still working to organize transport to get everyone out of the camp.

The following morning, busses started to arrive. In a move that would later be criticized heavily, the camp directors prioritized evacuating the necromancers first. Order of priorities went Necromancers --> Injuries --> Minor Injuries --> Regular Campers. This meant that quite a few campers with minor injuries and most of the uninjured ended up stuck at the camp for an extra night. Food ran out except for the lima beans, though several caches of snacks were recovered from the store.

The camp ended up only closing 11 days early. Once the last kids were out, Cook's Assistant Loganoff reportedly told the directors he would be back next year and promptly left. The other remaining staffers(the nurse and a few others left with the injured kids) trickled out after that, being informed they wouldn't be paid for the remaining 11 days and had to find their own rides back to civilization. Several of them hitched rides out with the fire fighters. By the end of the third day after the riot, only the two camp directors remained. It was at this time that they discovered someone slashed the tires on the camp's one remaining vehicle. Reportedly, the two directors survived on lima beans and wild caught fish until their buisness partners returned, and together the four of them spent six weeks rebuilding the camp.

Aftermath

Handling of the Necromancers

The necromancers being bussed out arrived at what they thought was to be their lunch stop in the nearby town, only to discover the camp directors had only paid to have them bussed that far. Two full buss-loads were abandoned outside a fast food place before the others got wise and refused to get off. Many of the initially abandoned group were those with minor injuries. The drivers were brow-beaten into taking them at least as far a the city where they could at least get real medical treatment, though this meant skipping the lunch stop. Room was made on the remaining busses for the groups which had been abandoned, and they completed the five-hour journey back to civilization.

Handling of the Injured

A lot of the kids who had only minor cuts and bruises never received more than a cursory checkout. Their parents were not informed of the riot, many were not even informed their children were being sent home from camp early. When the busses started to arrive at the drop-off locations, many of the children were still wearing makeshift bandages fashioned from camp t-shirts, or sporting poultices provided by the necromancer apothecaries. A good number of them suffered from infections because the cuts were not adequately cleaned. A few were also found to have much more serious injuries not identified by the initial triage.

Because of the extremely poor organization of the evacuation, a lot of the kid were simply dropped off at random rec-centers in the nearby city, most of whom actually lived in Arindell another 5 hours away by train.

Dispensation of Property

Only the very last group of kids to be evacuated were given time to pack their belongings. All the others left with only the clothes on their backs. This remaining group of kids, mostly older teenagers, used the opportunity to loot the camp of any valuables left behind by other campers. There was no adult supervision at all for them at this point. The goods taken amounted to very serious thefts; the necromancers were traveling with all of their luggage on a years-long pilgrimage. This meant they were frequently carrying expensive personal items bought by their families back home. Other goods taken included valuable souvenirs from off-world, expensive clothing; anything the looters thought they might like.

After the evacuation was complete, the camp owners made the issue even worse. First, they did not get to cleaning up the satellite camps used by the necromancers until weeks after everyone left. The looters knocked over most of the tents and spread out what personal belongings they did not take, which then lay exposed to the elements. The camp directors made no attempt to separate out anyone's personal property. They merely gathered up everything left behind by the campers(probably stealing any remaining items of value) and cast it all into an enormous "lost and found" at the back of the mess hall.

Many parents on both sides were understandably miffed. In addition to not returning any of the property, the camp also refused to give out any refunds. They did provide some travel vouchers to cover the fairs of families who had to come up to the city to retrieve their children.

Lawsuits

Necromancers

Individual necromancers were unable to sue the camp as most of them were from off-world. Any possible payout would have paled in comparison to the travel costs. Instead, the task of persecuting the camp fell on New Arindell's Council of Litches, as they had organized the the camp anyway. The Arindell Necromancer Temple has thousands of lawyers among it's membership, as well as access to the greatest legal minds in history(presuming those minds have already died).

Camp Shababadahs' owner/directors then counter-sued, claiming the necromancers had violated the camp rules by bringing Ke'tcha on site, which they claimed to be alcoholic. This suit was quickly dismissed as, despite common perception, it was well established in legal circles that Ke'tcha is indeed not considered alcohol.

The entire necromancer suit was organized into a class-action.

Outcome

The Council of Litches became heavily involved in the suit directly, sending avatars into the courtroom to testify. Their defense council also included the raised up shades of several prominent lawyers throughout history, all of whom's advice proved to be useless as they were only familiar with the law in their own time.

Unfortunately, the litch's attempt to impress the jury with what the media described as "undead shenanigans" and a fair amount of anti-necromancer sentiments in the media, failed to impact the case. Ultimately, the judge found that Camp Shababadahs had fulfilled their end of the contract as it was signed. The necromancer's decision to bring their own camp councilors nullified the culpability of Camp Shababadahs' own councilors, few of whom could be found to testify. The fact that the pilgrims directly involved in the event had already moved on and were now off-world did not help the matter either. The court ruled the camp only had to refund the 11 days when no necromancers were on site, as this is what they had agreed to in the contract. The Council of Litches was not happy.

While the judge did find in favor of the defendants, in his closing statements he decried the actions of Camp Shababadahs and stated that while they technically fulfilled the contract, they did so in such a slipshod manner their business practices should be criminal. The judge even made a formal appeal to then-Light Bearer placeholder lightbearer to intercede.

This incident in and of itself represents an important landmark decision in Arindell's legal history. Traditionally, the Pendragon has always had the power to to overturn judgements; especially in cases where one party very clearly did wrong but the letter of the law protects them. The Light Bearer apologized and explained that the Light Bearer was not the Pendragon, and therefore lacked power. The Pendragon's legal powers stem from holding the sword Echbalder, which was lost. Although it was well-understood since the death of Conri Jusenkyou that the Light Bearer did not hold equal power to the Pendragon, this was one of the few cases where that point was entered into a major legal proceeding.

Parents

The families of the non-necromancer campers involved in the incident filed surprisingly few lawsuits. A lot of the older campers, when interviewed later, admitted they heavily downplayed the event when describing it to their parents. It helped that the camp did send out small sums to pay for the most of the injured campers to see mage-healers(though not until six months later). Several of the teenagers involved would later tell news outlets they deliberately played off the whole incident like a row because they didn't want the camp to close.

The parents of many younger campers attempted to sue on the grounds of trauma, but the whole riot was so poorly documented they had a difficult time proving anything in court. The camp directors agreed to pay out half refunds to the families of any campers who would state they did not ever wish to return. Other suits were settled by offering 30% discounts on return-visits(a move that had surprisingly high acceptance.

The families of the 23 boys beaten severely made the largest suits, but the camp was able to skirt liability by claiming adult necromancers carried out the beatings. This was never proven, and the camp settled out of court by paying part of the cost to have the boys healed.

Class-Action Over Material Losses

Nearly every child who attended camp that year lost all of their belongings when the camp was evacuated. This amounted to well over 100,000 wingbeats in material possessions lost or destroyed. Unfortunately, the class-action suit included the necromancers, the majority of whom could not be even be reached. Shababadahs' primary defense hinged upon the fact that they never wrote anything down. While there were records of payments being accepted, they made almost no accounting of children's names, bunk assignments, or anything else. In many cases parents could not even prove their child actually attended the camp.

The class-action fell apart when the prosecution failed to assemble a complete enough list of belongings lost or destroyed. Though estimates put the number somewhere between 120,000 and 250,000 wingbeats, they were only able to document 56,000 wingbeats worth of losses; largely made up of used items with very little intrinsic value(childrens clothing they are likely to grow out of and old sleeping bags, for example).

The camp also claimed that nothing had actually been destroyed or stolen, and that all of the camper's possessions had been moved to the mess hall and were accounted for. It was late winter by this point and Shababadahs was snowed-in. The camp directors offered to verify any possessions were present if the family could provide a picture of the item, this would then be sent to the winter caretaker. In point of fact, Shababadahs had no winter caretaker; the roads were utterly impassible until mid-spring, so the directors simply fixed any damage when they prepared for each new season.

The directors then offered to let anyone who could prove they attended camp the previous summer come up before the new season was set to begin and claim their property. Provided they made an appointment ahead of time and arrived precisely at the hour, usually late-afternoon on a single specific day. Given that most campers lived down in Arindell and this involved a 13-hour-each-way journey, few elected to make the trek. Returning campers were also told they would be able to claim their belongings, but in practice everything had been thrown into an un-sorted lost and found, which was again quickly looted without any real thought to what belonged to whom.

Conclusion

Despite everything, the summer of N.D. 493 proved to be the most lucrative for Camp Shababadahs. Even with all the repairs and payouts, the camp owners made more than they'd done in any previous season. The woodshop never had power tools again and the boat-building program was permanently ended; but despite all the negative press the camp still opened to a huge turnout in N.D. 494.

The only real winners were the next generation of camp counselors. Amidst everything else, Camp Shababadahs was found guilty of under-paying it's staff. Unfortunately because so few of them could be located in the aftermath, none received compensation. Going forward, the camp was required to account for it's employee's time, not to over-work them, and to compensate them accordingly if they worked more than 8 hours in a day. The camp responded by lowering the rate to minimum wage and instituting a time clock for the following season. This unfortunately created another round of losers: the children. Now that they had established work-hours, off-duty employees preferred to spend their time in the new councilor's cabin rather than hanging around in camp, which led to even less supervision than ever before.