"Thank you for your wise perspective as always, Archduchess," does the woman ever shut up.

“Archduchess, the point is not to convince the populace we aren’t lying about Arodenite Cheliax - the point is to restore the rule of law on a tried and tested pattern. As you say, the people will believe little we say - that is why we need a system they can see the justice in, and let them learn its truth over time. 

The commons in the convention itself we can hold to a higher standard. We will tell them the truth about the past - even you can confirm that. There must be a dozen ways to show them, starting with us resurrected avowing it. 

We do not need to depart from Aroden’s wisdom just to distinguish ourselves from Asmodeus - now is when we need that wisdom more than ever.”

"If we're worried that people will misunderstand the phrase 'Arodenite punishments,' perhaps we could simply list which punishments our proposal restores, while noting the fact that those punishments were traditionally used in Arodenite Cheliax." That was obviously how they were going to write the law anyway but it's not like he was expecting the Archduchess to be reasonable. "If we are additionally banning forms of execution common under Asmodeanism, it might also be prudent to list any specific punishments that we want to be certain to disallow."

"Aroden's wisdom suited a populace raised under Aroden's wisdom, whose grandfathers were also raised under Aroden's wisdom. I do not dispute that it was an excellent way to run a country, nor even do my resurrected radical revolutionaries who fought the Civil War for Ravounel, even though they are pushing Kintargo and Ravounel more radical in nearly every other way despite my best efforts. But Aroden never pulled a populace out of Hell's grasp. His policies in the very earliest days of Taldor before Taldaris I, when it was uncivilized and becoming civilized, would seem a better place to look for rules to suit our current situation, though I don't remember that appearing in His books and do not know what they were."

"In the absence of clear advice for the situation we actually have, you should not assume reasserting old policies will have good results now merely because they had good results then. Tradition is valuable when circumstances change slowly, but after a century of abrupt and total changes, it is very obviously not going to work as it did before; it will do something wild, which could in theory be wildly good, but could equally be wildly bad. If you want a model which has predictable results, look to Andoran or Galt, not to Aroden, and decide whether you consider those acceptable."

From everything he’s heard since returning, calling Andoran and Galt predictable is insane. Fortunately they don’t need to convince the radicals like Jilia, just a reasonable majority of the convention. 

If you want Andoran or Galt, you can get it! Just do what they did! That's entirely predictable.

"In Lastwall torturous executions are banned. I know that there are many features of Lastwall's governance that are believed to only work because of the Goddess' intervention, but I don't think this is one of them. The practice was, as Archduke Narikopulus mentioned, copied in Menador, with no ill result, and Menador is not governed by paladins. It was tested, by Iomedae when she was mortal, in an army assembled from the people of Taldor, who are not renowned for particular virtue among all the peoples of the world. It may seem, in theory, that the having no way to escalate beyond a death sentence means that the state cannot dissuade those who have already committed capital crimes from doing more, but in actual practice that does not seem to be the case. Even the theory is less persuasive than it sounds - Why should we imagine that there are many men who would be deterred from evil by the threat of mortal torments, when they are undeterred by the prospect of Hell or the Abyss? In forbidding torture of criminals, the queen acts with both mercy and wisdom, and I see no reason for us to overturn that."

"I agree. I am confused by it, but I am forced to agree.

If you mean to ban specific punishments, the fashion in Asmodean Cheliax was to be as creative and varied as possible, so any list any individual can give you will be incomplete. Some forms with variations were particularly common, I suppose. Impalement, flaying, slow cooking, use in the opera or the arena. Kantaria was primarily using crucifixion, boiling, impalement, burning, hanging, tearing limb from limb, and the breaking wheel, but we were more restrained than most places."

And the ordeals, but those aren't executions. ....oh, no, if they standardize punishments over the whole country then they might have to stop doing those. That doesn't make much sense, though, the ordeals are definitely older than Asmodean rule.

"I agree, we cannot ban specific punishments in a country that once prized creativity in punishment. We must create a list of allowed punishments, bound their severities, and let the writers of laws pick what punishments are appropriate for them. Banning a punishment necessarily means banning it for the worst crimes, and I fear if we do not openly allow some flexibility and severity it will instead occur in secret.

Did you say hanging was a torturous execution? Perhaps the chair or Marquis de Almenar, who both lived in Cheliax before the Thrunes, can describe executions and their severities as happened then."

"Well, I'd call the way we did it more torturous than beheading. We're working on switching most executions to hanging the way they do it in Lastwall, where the neck is normally broken instantly, but it's a bit of an investment."

Obviously beheading is better--that's why it is a noble privilege that it's the standard method of execution for them. But if the Lord Marshal really thinks they shouldn't be hanging common criminals, it might be harder to find agreement than he thought.

They boiled people alive?

"In Aroden's day, the most common forms of execution were beheading, garroting, and hanging — in the ordinary fashion, not the fashion of Lastwall. When torture was used, it took the form of burning at the stake, breaking on the wheel, typically used for lesser treason, or turning to parts, reserved for high treason."

"Lord Marshal, we must make allowance for the people of Cheliax, who have been lied to for generations about the true natures of the afterlife. The Asmodeans have told them that hell is a reward, that pain is purification, that their final destination is certain and not worthy of their consideration. There are many in Cheliax today who do not fear Pharasma's judgment and do fear the torturer's tools. Until we can convince them to come around on the first point, to abandon the second is to abandon the defense of innocents.

We must counter the lies of the Asmodeans with the truth. Torture is the province of those irreparably set against civilization, not everyday civilians. If we remove it from the public sphere, the people will assume it continues in private, and may very well be correct in those suspicions! We should abandon mandatory attendance of executions, but by keeping them public the people can verify the sad ends of those who act against the public, and that those sad ends are both stern and merciful except in extreme cases, and we few overseers can ensure that our many underlings are operating according to the law. By telling them we will burn cultists, we make it easier to believe that we will not burn murderers.

Our purpose here is to write a wise and just law which will both pass the floor and be followed by the people of Cheliax. My hope, at this point, is not to find a bill you will vote for, as I understand that sort of positive action would open you to responsibility I am loathe to put on you. Rather, my hope is find a bill that you are merely willing to not speak out against on the floor. It will fall short of the standards of Lastwall, but mere days ago people were clamoring for Valia Wain to be torn apart by lions, and I would establish a clear break from the Thrunes and bury that sort of barbarity without sacrificing the right of the people and state to appropriate self-defense."

They'll believe all those things are happening in private anyway, you idiot.

"I will not condone torture, even through silence, no matter how evil the victim, especially not when it has been shown by the examples of Lastwall and Menador to be unnecessary."

Well, perhaps it was his mistake for trying to compromise with a paladin. He will lean back and let the chair steer.

"Duke, you are mistaken if you think having such punishments in public will deter the Chelish people from believing they, or worse, are present in private. They will believe that anyway. And if they are present in public, it will take much longer for them to learn otherwise; I daresay longer than any of our remaining lifetimes, do we not avail ourselves of the archhealer's reincarnation, though I would hope to be pleasantly surprised. You would have a reasonable argument, if your assumptions were correct; I would even agree. But I have governed the Chelish for over twelve times as long as any of you, and I say to you with no doubt in my mind that those assumptions are incorrect."

Jonatan is not thrilled with the prospect of arguing against a paladin about this on the floor, but he's seen some of the crimes people in his county have gotten up to under the belief that the consequences would be gentle. Paladins weren't this unreasonable a hundred years ago.

"Thank you for your counsel, Your Highness, Lord Marshal. With that being said, unless anyone has further thoughts, I'd like to call a vote on this proposal." He's not confident it's a good idea to bring it to the floor immediately with several archdukes and the Lord Marshal opposed, but he wants to have the option of bringing it to the floor, particularly if the Archduchess decides to bring more hastily-written, destructive radicalism for a vote.

In light of the diversity and severity of punishments under Infernal Rule, Cheliax shall in matters of criminal law only perform the following fourteen punishments on civilians:

1. Whipping, with a horsewhip, no more than 80 times, ceasing before the point of risk to life
2. Fine, with any amount unpaid collected via indenture
3. Imprisonment.
4. Pillory, not to exceed one month.
5. Branding.
6. Civil Death.*
7. Banishment.
8. Maiming, only in situations where it will inhibit commission of the same crime and will not pose a risk to life.
9. Hard labor, not to exceed ten years.
10. Death, by hanging, garroting, or beheading, with an eye to swiftness.
11. Confiscation, or death and seizure of inheritance.
12. Burning at the Stake.
13. Breaking upon the Wheel.
14. Turning to Parts, reserved solely for the punishment of High Treason.

Writers of criminal laws shall identify which punishments from this set are appropriate for violations of that law, and may not invent new punishments. It shall be standard, in the case of repeat offenses, to increase the quantitative penalty or to increase the grade of the punishment. Punishments 1-3 may be referred to as "corrective" punishments. Punishments 4-7 may be referred to as "humiliating" punishments. Punishments 8-11 may be referred to as "afflictive" punishments. Punishments 12-14 may be referred to as "torturous" punishments. The military shall determine its own punishments under a separate law.

* Civil death is the loss of all civil rights, and all property is considered to pass on as though the individual had died.

Please, she wrote it last week.

"What are permissible forms of hard labor? Is indenture permitted to exceed ten years, and thus become more severe than hard labor?"

"Indenture in the case of unpaid fines typically did not include hard labor of the sort used as criminal punishment; agricultural indentures were most common, followed by domestic labor, though with some variation depending on local conditions. The length varied with the size of the unpaid fine, with no explicit cap. Those sentenced to hard labor typically served in the mines, in the navy, or on logging expeditions."

"It will be universally understood that criminal indenture means death in the mines if anyone holds any grudge at all against the convict and that no criminal indenture will ever be escaped without the extraordinary intervention of someone rich and favorably inclined toward the convict. People did not successfully pay down indentures, in Cheliax; they were structured to be permanent profit sources for those who hold them, they still will be if that is legal, and they will be assumed to be structured so even if it is not."

"Additionally I consider it dishonest to class hard labor in the mines as anything less than a torturous execution. And I question the wisdom of permitting something that the Hellknight we just spoke to earlier said his order rejects. I am aware you aren't trying for this code to be Good, but I thought you were at least trying not to be Evil."

"I appreciate the advice about how this statute is likely to be perceived." This is, for once, mostly sincere. "I fear that only time will be enough to show that indentures are no longer being structured in such a fashion, but I certainly think it would be prudent to take reasonable precautions against misuse of indentures."

He edits the second punishment. He's not actually sure what the correspondence between unpaid fines and indenture term should be, so he's copying Acevedo's censorship law.

2. Fine, with any amount unpaid collected via indenture as an agricultural worker or domestic laborer, for a maximum term of 1 year per ten crowns left unpaid.

"My understanding is that the staffing of the mines is the remit of the Committee on Natural Resources, and if you believe they ought not be staffed by convicts, I recommend that you take it up with them." He doesn't feel particularly inclined to dignify the remainder of her continued attacks on his character with a response. If she wants to think the entirety of Arodenite Cheliax was Evil, that's her prerogative.

"I have one other concern, though I must be honest and admit that it does not decide my vote. Menador has continued the limited use of trial by ordeal in exceptional cases. I believe the practice predates Asmodean rule, though I do not know how it fit into the standardized system under Aroden. It is well-understood there, and many are protective of it. I would like to avoid disrupting a system which is functioning well. Will this statute prevent it?"

"I admit that I'm less familiar with the customs of Menador. I believe that as written this statute would not prevent it, as a trial by ordeal is not a punishment per se, but rather a method of determining a verdict. With that being said, I don't mean to disrupt a tradition that is serving Menador well; is there language you'd like me to add to this statute to ensure that trial by ordeal is explicitly permitted, without accidentally permitting anything that ought to remain illegal?"

"I am unsure of the wording. Perhaps it could be allowed only for those who stand accused of crimes for which the ordinary sentence is afflictive or torturous, and only as traditionally practiced in areas which currently make use of it."