Warrants, capture and surrender
A warrant has a jurisdiction, a reason and a sentence. Check who has authority before attempting capture or deciding how to surrender.
Visual overview
Diagram of reported mechanics. The text retains the full conditions and settings.
Check jurisdiction before issuing a warrant
Town mayors/Sheriffs act within their claims and outposts. Nation leaders/Marshals act across member towns. Server administrators have separate server authority. A warrant records a target, reason, sentence and optional escrowed bounty. Default ordinary maxima are 60 minutes for town authority and 240 for nation authority.
Default protections exclude players under 8 verified play hours, limit the same authority to one jailing per player per 24 civic hours, and exclude arena deaths. A warrant only applies where its authority governs. Use the Wanted interface for applicable warrants and cell information.
Capture or surrender
| Path | Required action | Items and custody |
|---|---|---|
| Clean capture | Hold Shackles in offhand; land direct otherwise-lethal hit, including own qualifying projectile | Death intercepted; inventory enters evidence; prisoner taken into custody |
| Surrender | Wanted player uses surrender within 5 blocks of someone holding Shackles | Evidence preserved; default sentence reduced 25% |
| Asleep | Use Shackles on an applicable wanted sleeping player | Clean capture without a health-visibility requirement |
| Ordinary player kill | Kill wanted player inside jurisdiction without clean-capture condition | Normal carried-item drops; jailing follows respawn |
| Admin jail | Admin Book moderation | Broader administrative route; separate from ordinary protections |
A wanted player may be huntable despite Civic no-PvP policy. Other protection mods, including Afterfall’s earlier damage switch, can still prevent lethal-hit capture. Surrender/asleep paths remain distinct; a Civic allowance cannot force damage through another mod.
Bounties and refunds
A qualifying capturer may receive the warrant bounty. Members of the target’s own town cannot collect it; the same capturer/target collection is restricted to once per day. Canceling a warrant refunds escrow according to authority rules. Disappearing organizations trigger cleanup, with unresolved held money handled by the server path.
A justice bounty is not a Job Board bounty. Use jobs for that listing flow. Prison life explains sentence time, evidence and release.
Afterfall sentence fallback
With older Afterfall or a missing needs-pause hook, sentences and safety limit cap at 60 online minutes. With working Afterfall 0.14.0+ API v1 needs pause, normal town/nation limits apply again. Hook registration is independent; consult integrations before configuring long sentences.
Admin & server owner reference
Exact identifiers, original fields and source locators are preserved below. These records describe the documented mod version; they are not commands to run or proof of a new gameplay test.
Registry IDs
civic_frontier:shacklescivic_frontier:sheriff_desk
Sources & verification
Evidence: pdf-derived. Feature status: implemented-static. Article coverage: ready.
PDF pages 24, 65 · 15 Justice · E28, E31, E69-E71
Civic Frontier report, reviewed October 23, 2026. Implementation and historical tests are reported findings unless a direct catalog inspection is separately identified. Pack overrides unknown.
The wiki has not independently playtested report-derived instructions. Your server or modpack settings may change them.