He's here, and noticing the mood is frostier than it was yesterday.

There is an armored observer, who is also observing the frostiness. Perhaps this was a bad time, but he's already here.

Jonatan is here, and not acting frostily at all.

Lluïsa has ray of frost prepared. Not for use in committee meetings.

"Well," says Marta, with at least apparent warmth, "I think many of us have learned a valuable lesson about the possible downfalls of passing legislation too hastily, and happily learned them without any ill effects."

Narikopolus is here. If he has feelings, they are not at this time apparent.

Marit is trying to figure out how to politely explain to Count Bellumar that if you sometimes put deceptive tricks into your proposals, it forces everyone else to spend far more time and effort verifying that your proposals do not have tricks, even when they genuinely don't have any tricks and serve your shared goals. He and Count Bellumar are both Taldan nobility originally. It really seems like it ought to be possible to explain this without offending him.

Imran is demonstrating the Paladin Eyebrow of Doom for Bellumar. It is not a friendly eyebrow. Apparently stereotypes regarding Taldane nobles apply, at least to those Taldane nobles who don't give up all their possessions to go on crusade.

Elias has some hope that they can get actual law and order decrees passed at some point.

"Calling this meeting of the Judiciary Committee to order. Congratulations to you all, first off, our first law passed, and I think by one of the strongest margins of the convention since it introduced the secret ballot! It looks like we have a guest, did you have a petition for this committee?"

"I'd like to sit in as an observer, if I may. But also, given some confusions clearly held among this and other committees, I thought I might explain, to the best of my knowledge, the general landscape of how Chelish subjects typically perceive the severities of various punishments. My order's scope across the cities and towns of the country gave us a relatively clear picture. If the committee finds that worthwhile?"

Hellknights just love punishments, don't they.

"I have no objections to an observer though I'll let any member ask you to leave just as they can ask for the scribes to leave. Is this a short presentation you have prepared now or one you would prepare in the future if there is interest?"

"Relatively brief, and I can give it now. I will of course leave if asked."

"Go ahead."

"Thank you. As you all may be aware, the Order of the Chain puts a high priority on taking criminals prisoner and making them serve society, rather than executing them, and I have personally witnessed a variety of punishments inflicted by other authorities. I therefore have some suggestions about different tiers of severity of punishment, particularly with respect to how they are perceived."

"The mildest punishment is lashes with a horsewhip, and starting with ten lashes is a suitable punishment for older children. For an adult, such a light punishment will be interpreted as a de facto pardon, the magistrate deciding that no crime was committed or being bribed for clemency. Thirty strokes with a horsewhip, or ten with a leather cat, are a reasonable place to start for an adult. More severe than that is a spiked whip or cat, and ten strokes with a spiked cat is a standard punishment."

"An alternative which was readily useful in the past is maiming. Removal of the last two fingers of the dominant hand for pickpocketing, and removal of the other hand on a second offense, was previously a significant punishment, and not the only form. Presently this is less viable because the Archhealer sells regeneration which can repair it, and so it is merely a sentence of significant pain and a significant fine, unless Naima Cotonnet can be convinced not to repair such damage."

"Hard labor is generally more serious yet than maiming. Obviously sentences to the spellsilver or gold mines are a de facto death sentence, and second only to immediate execution in severity as a punishment. But other forms of labor are usable; for those minor criminals caught by the Order and put to work in Citadel Gheradesca, we have them work in open-pit iron mines and stone quarries, which is back-breaking labor that instills humility and pays a debt to society, but not fatal like a ten-year sentence to the depths."

"There are of course also fines, possibility of conscription, and other sentences which can take effect as punishment for crimes, but the punishments I outlined are approximately in order of how seriously the Chelish people will take them. Execution of various degrees of torment is of course also a factor in how severe the people will judge various crimes, but I am neither an expert in the distinctions there, nor well informed as to which of those methods are acceptable in a country not sworn to Hell."

"Separately, for significant spellcasters of high circle, there is a different form of sentence to labor. This is classically the Order of the Chain's remit, and Citadel Gheradesca continues to stand ready to hold prisoners in such a way as to make use of their spellcasting for the good of the state, by compelling them to provide spellcasting services or the creation of magical items. Such imprisonment is expensive and I believe considered better than execution by most of its inmates, though ones who are less likely to be damned may have a different opinion. It is the most secure prison in Avistan as well as the largest on the mainland, and it is our duty and our honor to provide it as a service to the Crown and her representatives, in line with the agreements we made with Her Majesty just before and just after the Four-Day War."

"I am at your disposal for any questions."

"Would you be willing to repeat this to the Urban Order committee, when we meet later today?"

"Of course. Unless it conflicts with Safe Roads, which is my only current committee, but I don't believe it does."

"Thank you for your expert testimony," he says simply. "Perhaps some members of the committee would wish to share what punishments have been in use for the last year, so we may compare?"

"Assizes are a terrible setup for sentencing, especially trying to keep executions down to a bare minimum so that the villages don't collapse and everyone remaining there starve. We don't have the ability to supervise that would make a labor or indenture sentence conscionable, and can't do exile either, and can't follow up on any fine that isn't within the sentenced's ability to pay immediately. I can go over what we've been doing under these constraints but the constraints are so overwhelming that I don't think the results will be informative to any other situation."

"All right, one thing that can very obviously be done is - I understand why local lords were not given authority over sentencing, because some of them are still Asmodeans, but they ought to be empowered to enforce the sentences Heaven hands down, and then you can do - a season of labor, or a fine paid at harvest time, things like that."

"The reason we'd need supervisory power to hand down labor sentences is precisely because some of them are still Asmodeans. We can't hand someone off to a warden who may abuse the power and there's no time to give everybody in town an illegal orders class."