"...in that case I'm not entirely sure. I mean. It's still probably less Evil. But probably fairly Evil. ...what Lastwall does about orcs, so you are aware, isn't satisfactory to anybody but it's to retaliate against raids, kill the raiders, not take any slaves, not kill non-raiders as much as they can distinguish them though they do probably usually starve, and build walls so it takes a really very organized orc group to do any raiding."

"Unfortunately, I think our border is much longer than yours."

"Yes, I don't really think that's an option you meaningfully have right now, if ever."

"Well, I can tack on some questions about intent regarding the murder decree onto the letter I have to write about the rape decree. I will consider how to fix this generally, but I will need to think about it for longer than fifteen seconds."

He should be grateful for the number of headaches this is, really. If his job were easy, he would be dead right now.

"We appreciate it. I understand that it often does not make sense to make a lot of changes at once, and that it is hard to anticipate all the consequences."

"And yet we do need to get to work somewhere. Do you still think that executions are the highest priority?"

"I don't know? Quite possibly. Is there a lot of other torture still going on, or is it mostly just the executions?"

"Well, what set of things would you consider torture, exactly?"

"Let's go with...causing people extreme pain....intentionally.... except as a side effect of trying to treat an illness or remove a stuck baby or something."

"The sheriffs are still whipping people and sending them to the mines. The law is not very creative, up here. Individual landholders and employers are probably continuing to use all sorts of torture; as far as I'm aware there's currently no law against using most forms of extreme pain as punishment for people who one has authority over, or indeed over many other people, provided that it doesn't actually kill someone or constitute assault with a deadly weapon."

"I see. Well, it may not be illegal but it is definitely Evil. ...whipping people as a proportionate punishment for crimes is not Evil, though it seems ill-advised in a region with no priests. Most of the other things you describe are Evil. And probably a higher priority than the executions since... I assume there are not that many executions? Lastwall has less than twenty in most years and I think more population than Menador."

"We have a lot more than twenty every year." ....a lot more. "On the other hand, most capital crimes have recently stopped existing. I suppose treating infanticide as murder would probably cause the number of capital crimes committed and caught to go significantly up, but as far as I know we still have significant discretion in sentencing. We didn't typically heal people after whipping them even when we did have priests, but is there some other penalty you think would be more appropriate?" 

Narikopolus is really struggling to imagine what a punishment that is neither evil nor ill advised would look like, at the moment.

"If there's not a problem with infections from whipping then it's probably fine, I just would've expected one. I can provide you with Lastwall's code of laws and punishments, if it's helpful, but the most important principle is just that punishments should be consistent and proportionate."

"Whippings do sometimes cause infections, I'm just not immediately sure what one would replace them with that didn't. I suppose there's probably some known punishment that achieves significant pain while leaving the skin completely intact and not causing massive internal damage, but I am not personally much of a student of torture."

"I am going to be writing to a great many people for advice and will see if any of them know of any."

"I think I would not recommend executing people for infanticide, outside perhaps cases where - someone kills a child over the mother's wishes or something like that. When people in Cheliax die today they go to Hell and - obviously you can't entirely stop enforcing the law on that basis but I do think it features as a consideration."

"I understand. Any other advice?"

"I'm not quite clear on the household's healing situation. Iolanda seemed reluctant to use a spell even to save Guim's life, and worried you'd be angry if she did - please don't if you only learned of it by me, of course - Do you have household guidelines on that? Is everyone supposed to make their own judgment calls?"

"We've been trying to wean ourselves off devil blood. I didn't realize she had kept any, before today." Or that she'd been preparing the spell, which is really the more concerning half; she'd clearly intended to defy the rule if it came up. "I think we should fairly urgently send someone south to obtain more wands, but they're going to be very expensive right now."

"Oh, it makes sense that if Hell was supplying the devil's blood then it's running out now. I'm writing Vigil about a cleric today, and if you've anyone who can Teleport I will include that in the letter as it might get us one faster."

"Not here right now, but I have access to a man who can. I doubt if he's been to anywhere in Lastwall; do you have anything that could help him land a scry on someone?"

"There are people who permit scries for comms. I can get you a name and description for one."

"That would help, yes." He really hopes that - well, he'll see when he gets there. "Letters, then?"

...Asmodeus has of course done a great deal of damage in Menador, but the new regime is widely acknowledged in Kantaria, the city is safe, the journey was safe, and the Archduke's household appears committed to making changes on the recommendations of the Church. 

They have no empowered clerics at all. Not just Iomedans; the Archduke does not appear aware of any clerics who channel positive in the entire archduchy. The Archduke believes that there are clerics of Pharasma and Erastil operating secretly in the countryside, but none of them are currently willing to reveal themselves to the authorities. Kantaria has limited access to devil blood for infernal healing, wands of cure light wounds which have recently run out, and a captured orc who is a cleric of Dretha, who they are currently keeping prisoner in order to have additional access to healing. Inasmuch as concerns about stability in Kantaria or the cooperation of the local government with the Church, or the belief that alternative acceptable sources of magical healing exist, factored in the decision to send only unempowered priests, we would urge a review; priests of any kind seem likely to be extremely scarce in Cheliax for the foreseeable future with immediate consequence both for local lives and for the legitimacy and stability of the new regime.

...

We have sought also the advice of Crusader's Fort and of the Church in Andoran on catechesis in populations without prior exposure to the teachings of the Goddess, and would appreciate recommendations on any other sources for those recommendations...

…Asmodeans - and, as a result, recent ex-Asmodeans - have a tendency to view moral questions as tests of their ability to intuit or regurgitate the answers considered correct or permissible by the current authorities, rather than by considering what actions have the results that they or other people prefer. This does not necessarily mean that they are only pretending to want to be good. It does mean that many of them are not used to considering their own preferences or the preferences of others as relevant to the question of what they should do, and the transition is more difficult than one might expect.

While it is worth addressing this root problem when possible, in most circumstances where someone is grappling with specific wrongdoing, the church in Andoran has a general policy of accepting this framing. They want to know the right answers. They want to know how to derive the right answers next time. You have them, or at least far more of them than they do. Many of them want a public lecture on what a good and decent person would have done in their situation, over and over until they learn the rules. That they are approaching this exercise from a place of fear and slavish obedience does not mean that they won’t in fact learn those rules, if given them. As they put the right answers into practice, their communities become safer and less painful. And as that happens, more of them will begin to have the courage to argue and to contradict you in the specifics, where they see your specific answers as diverging from the principles you’ve taught them. But it is a long process, undertaken over many years.

This can mean that, counterintuitively, the impulse to pick one’s battles socially and politically is not always positive in this population. They want to know the right answers, not just the answers that seem easiest to implement. This is not to say that you cannot do harm by expecting perfection; they will not be perfect. But it’s very unlikely that all of them will drag their feet to every step, and need to be cajoled through each one, as in a population that has known what good was all their lives. I recommend getting into the habit of explaining what real, ideal, even heroic goodness would look like in each case, and then afterwards discussing other actions which fall short of this, but are markedly better than the status quo, in order of their goodness, so that each person can choose for himself what battles he is prepared to fight…