"The announcement said multiple priests of Iomedae dead, but there are a few others in the city if only two as delegates, it must've been a couple of those. I know Artigas was lynched by the mob."

"...ah. We had two lay priests of Iomedae staying with us. They were killed defending the manor with us."

"I don't blame the Church of Iomedae for this disaster, not really. They never recommended becoming Galt. Even Wain's speech probably would have done nothing if not for the barrage of followons - the speeches claiming she'd told the people of Westcrown to tear" tieflings "men limb from limb in the streets. The geneology of Archduke Blanxart. The supposed leaked proceedings of the committee on excising diabolism - unless Wain was responsible for that too, but I really would have expected the Goddess to throw out a priest for publishing confidential committee proceedings - 

- at some point it starts to look like organized enemy action, not just idiocy. There were half a dozen people, or a very prolific one, lurking over this city waiting to pounce when someone made the mistake of throwing an excuse out there. And it's all a very predictable consequence of having the Archmage Cotonnet make us reenact his childhood and get it right this time in a city that's hanging on to law by its fingertips." 

Very very strong words, but she doesn't think he'll kill her for them. He's too Galtan. 

"... My guess would be disorganized enemy action, Duchess," he says, moderately. "If it had appeared out of nowhere, I'd agree with you, but it appeared at specifically the first opportunity. That suggests less coordination, less planning, and more in the way of people taking the chance as soon as they saw it. I'd expect Geryon cultists, radical republicans, maybe Norgorberites or demoniacs, all tripping over each other in an eagerness to pounce at the opportunity Valia Wain just gave them."

"Hopefully they'll round up all of the responsible parties swiftly and it'll be clearer both who brought this about and how much we need fear it happening again."

"Indeed," he says grimly. "What will settle this affair is when the men who stole and killed and raped meet the Final Blade, whatever their motives." He doesn't say 'hanged' out of deference to the paladin.

Oh, thank gods. He nods. "The entire city clearly needs an unambiguous message that there are consequences for breaking the law, no matter how many people ones breaks it with. Anarchy serves no one."

"I think you can get by without torturous executions but you can't get by without at least one of torturous executions or consistent ones. 'I might spend the next two weeks dying horribly' does it, and so does 'I will certainly not survive it', but not 'well, they probably won't catch me and if they do it'll be quick."

You have justice or you have anarchy. Pick one. Xavier nods.

"I'm sure it'll be difficult to track down everyone. But worth it, easily, if the alternative is that this keeps happening."

"If I were the archmages I think I'd set up some very fancy zone of truth and march the whole city through, ask them 'did you riot'?. It's an extreme measure, but they're archmages and they have an extreme problem on their hands. They tried just arresting the ringleaders, last time this happened.. ...you don't have to kill them all, either, if you're an archmage, you can sort out the less traitorous three quarters, open a Teleportation Circle to our I-hear-understaffed Worldwound forts, and let them try actually fighting Evil."

"You don't think that creates the same uncertainty?"

"To the people remaining in Westcrown I think they're as good as dead. No one watches archmages march some people off through a Teleportation Circle and thinks 'it wouldn't be so bad if that happens to me'. No one thought like that even in old Cheliax. It wouldn't actually surprise me if it were more effective than the merciful executions."

"Mmm. The forts certainly are shorthanded, but from a military perspective I don't know that staffing them with mobs improves the problem. But I've never had much of a sense of poetry." This excuse has served him long and well for why he usually used, like, seven different kinds of executions, and didn't bother making up unique punishments for every individual case. 

"The Asmodeans have their raw conscripts six months basic training and another year on garrison duty before sending them to the Worldwound, and I don't think you can do much less if you want them to contribute. The galleys might be better, as a punishment." Once they have fleets on seas that use galleys, at least.

"I can't say that poetry moves me much, nor that I have very strong opinions about where specifically to put them, but we're talking about executing thousands of able-bodied men during a manpower shortage, and they're mostly not hardened bandits, they're idiots who followed the laws fine back when the laws were enforced."

"Well, I hear we're abolishing slavery, which leaves the harvests uncertain. But I worry that that doesn't send the same message."

"Enslave all the rioters and send them to the farms? There's precedent in the old legal code, but I do worry that seems too lenient even if practical.  ...Lord Cansellarion, can you speak a bit to Lawful Good's practical reservations about torturous punishment? I understand Lastwall to still whip people, so it's not entirely prohibited, and -

- the way I've come to see this is that what matters the most is whether the response looks, to people, like the crown taking the matter seriously, or the crown giving them a slap on the wrist. And I have no difficulty believing that if there were disorder in Vellumis, and the ringleaders arrested, tried, and executed while everyone else was given a stern talking-to about how they'd just surrendered Heaven and had better spend the rest of their lives trying to get it back, this would be apparent to the people of Vellumis as the government taking the matter seriously; that is how they understand their government to handle serious matters. Probably it would be sufficient; to my knowledge there are in fact never riots in Vellumis, and it's not because they heal you a hundred times in the course of an execution for treason. 

But Chelish people - and this is not just a harm wrought by Asmodeanism, Chelish people of a century ago would feel the same - do not interpret this response as very serious. Executing every involved party - that they'll understand as serious. Making a horrible show of it - that they'll understand as serious. But enslaving the rioters and putting them to work they will probably survive, somewhere where we badly need them, is more merciful than either of those, and the problem is that it's too lenient, and the obvious way to close that gap is to hurt them, and I don't really see how it's more Good not to. Or rather I see the argument that - one tries to turn one's society into Vellumis, and not to arrange encouragement to instead get gradually worse - but Heaven concerns itself also with prioritization, and the priority in Cheliax right now is order."

"When I contemplate harsher enforcement of the law in Westcrown, I find myself thinking about Molthune, and the civil war.  The Lord-Protector had a problem with a few hundred rebellious subjects. Following much the same approach being recommended here, he rounded them up and hanged the lot; When this inspired more to rebellion he hanged them too. I imagine he thought that eventually he would have caught and killed every troublemaker, and there would be peace. I am sure he did not imagine that he was being cruel, or unjust, merely enforcing the law that existed. But the people around Nirmathas certainly disagreed! No one has ever swept a city looking for a thousand traitors and not committed a thousand injustices in the doing. Yes, with enough magic you may find all the guilty parties, but I doubt you will not also catch a hundred innocent men, and a hundred more who are guilty only of minor crimes that would merit a lesser sentence any other day. And each of those is another incident that will teach the people of Westcrown that the government is unreliable and unpredictable, that the crown and the nobility care little for their lives and hate them and want them to suffer and die. And even those rightfully convicted will leave the people with less to lose. A man whose wife is beheaded for throwing a torch is likely to rebel himself; a child orphaned by the final blade will take up a sword himself. The Lord-Protector started with a problem of a few thousand rebels, and now a third of the country is in insurrection, to say nothing of present company.

If I understand correctly, your question is about how a Lawful Good state balances the obvious benefits to public order of a harsh response to crime with the moral obligation to mercy. In fact, we think that question is wrongly-framed. A maximally harsh and merciless response to crime does not, usually, promote order. It's been tried, again and again, and I've never known it to work because people will learn to hate you faster than they learn to fear you. Valia Wain rebelled in Pezzack, when she knew that her whole family would be sentenced to be tortured to death for it, that she'd be maledicted to Hell if caught - does anyone here imagine they could threaten a punishment that would scare her? Our aim is to maintain order in the city. The situation is very dangerous and I'm sure very frightening, and I do not find myself strongly moved to prioritize mercy above order, beyond steps like not sending people to Hell when that can be avoided. You ask me, 'To win peace, would you condone torturing four thousand men to death?' but I think my question for you is, 'To win peace, would you forgive them?'"

He's dimly aware that he shouldn't speak, but he does anyway. "Teaching men that they can burn others alive in their homes with no repercussions does not win peace. It only invites even worse violation next time."

"There is a fundamental difference in kind, Lord Cansellarion, between peasants upset about high taxes and angry druids who strike for their lord and their lord's retainers, and men in a city who kill and rob and rape their neighbors. The former have a case. The latter - I would rather every man who thinks he has a right to rape be dead, I would rather live in a kingdom of ashes, than let him be right."

Wow, that's a little harsh.

Nah, that sounds right. He nods.

" - for my part I'd rather not live in a kingdom of ashes. I am not persuaded that Lord Cansellarion is right, about how best to avoid that, but if the gods could tell us with the benefit of prophecy which course to chart for no homes to burn and no mobs to form ever again, I'd follow it whether it were Maledicting Valia Wain or knighting her. This has to never happen again, that's the important thing."

Okay, yes, that's true. He nods along to that.