"Hello, thank you for the invitation, I'm Ser Angela Jornet."

Wave wave. "Nice to meet you, I'm Victòria."

Soler is confused about paladins as a class. Trying to be Lawful Good around strangers is terrible. He's doing it, but it's terrible and he wants to stop and go home, and they sign up for it to be their lives, so they are clearly very strange people. Still, they're Good. He nods politely to the paladin.

"Pleased to meet you. Were you one of those on assizes?"

"I was, yes, and then pulled from downtime to keep order in Westcrown and then diverted here."

"Difficult work. And unpleasant. Thank you."

"It's necessary but I think all of us are eager to see the convention turned toward its end."

She was kind of hoping to keep the paladins, actually! Having the paladins judge cases sounds way better than any other option! Unless they were, like, Delegate Artigas or something, she's not totally clear on how paladins are different from regular priests of Iomedae, but still.

"I'm not optimistic it will be an improvement when the convention does, but if it was sustainable I suppose you wouldn't have been pulled off downtime."

Paladins execute a lot of people quickly and Thrunes execute a lot of people slowly. It's probably useful having one here, but the room feels colder than it did before.

"Assizes aren't a good format for evidence-gathering and for sentencing it's worse. I don't know anyone to have fallen doing it yet - I wouldn't, that'd be between someone and their confessor and whoever's doing Atonements - but even if we were all indefinitely comfortable with the work we'd need a replacement system. But this is the Rights committee, not the Judiciary. I think there's a step where you vote on me? Are there other things you'd like to know about me?"

"If you want to share where you were raised and any other background, that would be appreciated, but we can go immediately to voting you in if not."

"My family is Molthuni gentry near Lake Encarthan. I'm a paladin only recently immune to fear and also a bit of a celestial-blooded swordmage. I served at the Wound before joining the Reclamation."

Paladins are immune to fear? What does it even mean to be a person who's immune to fear?

...If she's from Molthune does that mean she's going to start defending the skeletons thing? No, probably not, Feliu wasn't depending the skeletons thing, Iomedae wouldn't pick someone who — well, she picked Chosen Artigas — but Delegate Requena i Cortes specifically brought it up yesterday as the sort of thing that would make a paladin fall. Probably she'll be fine.

"Well, let's vote on the addition of Ser Jornet to the committee. I'm in favor."

"Also for."

Paladin is a paladin. That’s around all he needs to know. “For.”

"For."

"For."

Xavier has been here this entire time.

"Also for." Doesn't do any good to let the paladins know they're creepy in real life. Sort of like vikings. Probably she has a valuable perspective and in any case it's very silly to start feeling comfortable with a group of people just because you've passed some laws together.

"Aye."

"Welcome to the committee, then. I'd like to get back to rights around justice, but I would like to ask, first, if anyone found big flaws in the rules we had for performance censors."

(Angela quietly takes a seat.)

"I asked Alicia and she said she thought a lot of songbirds wouldn't really want to work with the old censors, but she didn't have a better idea that the floor'd be likely to go for. Apparently there's some kind of song-sorcerer spell that might help but she wasn't even sure it would."

"Well, we don't need a lot of them, right? And I don't think we want foreign songbirds approving stuff on their own right now."

"Yeah, the current idea might be the best we've got, just, it seems like a good thing to be aware of even if we don't actually change anything."

"I expected that; that's most of why we'll have to pay them so well. If there wasn't anything else?"

"That's all she said about it." She looks around the room.

As does Jilia, who also sees nothing, so she continues, "Right, let's vote on yesterday's proposal for performances and a specific board of censors. In favor."

"Ser Jornet, here* is a copy of what we considered yesterday and had people bring away for review, if you didn't get a chance to read the transcript."

*(with the changes from slightly later)

“Aye.”

"Aye."

"For."

"For." Plays are a dumb thing to spend money on, but the Archduchess needs it.

Hopefully this is not spending any state money, which, yes, they don't have.

"Abstain."

"In favor." It sounded kind of like plays were for Shelynites what the Parables are for Erastilians, so, you know, it's fair.

"In favor." He did say he'd do it so he has to do it.

"Passes without objection. I'll bring it to the floor tomorrow. Alright, let's get back to other rights. It's been a while since we did... ordinary business, to the extent that's a meaningful phrase here, so we might want to pass around the long list of potential rights we threw together on the first day. I'd like to look at rights around justice - we had a ban on maledictions, ban on torture or assault as part of interrogations, and the right for executions to be swift and as painless as feasible."

Proposed Rights

- No sumptuary laws, except for criminal impersonation of military, noble, or religious insignia

- No limits on peaceful assembly, in public or otherwise, outside conditions of martial law.

- No limits on peaceful speech, conditions to be decided (martial law, proselytization for banned gods)

- Right to travel freely without needing a travel pass.

- Right to worship any god not of the lower planes.

- Right to justice (clarify?)

- Right to their own person, free from being defiled by force.

- Right to defend themself against assaults on their person,

- Right to retaliate against past assaults on their person significantly later

- Right to have crimes judged by a priest rather than a local noble, or right to appeal crimes to a priest (decide which gods)

- No decrease in punishment for crime from a title or position as a priest (or military officer?), and perhaps an increase in punishment due to the increased responsibility

- Right for farmers to own the land they work.

- Right to divorce. By consent, or if there is no child nor pregnancy, or if a priest hears the dispute and judges it allowed, and possibly unconditionally for wives.

- Right to pilgrimages to temples on holy days

- Right not to punish others except as terms of employment

- Right to preserve family; no intrusion on marriage by lords, no conscription of children

- Right to the proceeds of labor

- Limits on time of indenture or conscription

- Ban on torture

- Right to stay on land even if taxes exceed savings

- Right for victim to carry out punishment (dangerous?)

- Right not to be made undead

- Right to be ransomed when captured

- Ban on maledictions

- Right to hunt and collect firewood in the woods

- Right to good loans (?), and forgiveness for loans seen unfair in a judge's sight

- Right to reasonable food prices in emergencies

- Right to contest and refuse taxes claimed illegally by collectors

- Right to know the status of your family when separated (difficult to do)

- Right to a good baron (?)

- Right to leave Cheliax

- Right to compel a father to marry their child's mother

- Right to choose which currency to be paid in (including in kind)

- Right to form a village militia against the dangers of monsters and outlaws if not competently protected

- Right to keep property (requires care to permit taxes)

- Right to your own thoughts (with some caveats for legitimate investigation)

- Right to attempt to achieve salvation before execution (donations, labor for a Good church, etc.)

- Right not to be compelled to do Evil

- Ban on capital punishment for being an accessory or accomplice

- Right to have undead forms destroyed

- Right to be returned to human if polymorphed

- Right to know your rights (even if illiterate)

- Right of children and mothers not to be abandoned by their fathers (and vice versa where applicable)

- Rights of orphans (extended family before paid orphanages, etc.)

"I had something new I wanted to say about that, but, uh, it might be a little long, and also Delegate Bainilus thought we might want to not have the scribe put it in the transcript, is that okay?"

They're going to write down that you said that, Ferrer.

"Certainly; scribes, if you would step out for a moment, we'll call you back in when it's done."

It feels a little like the walls are closing in around her but this is a stupid and pathetic way to feel so she's going to ignore it. All she is doing is talking, which is not hard. It's not like anything particularly bad even actually happened to her.

"Okay. So. Over the weekend, I got arrested for helping Valia make her speech. 

And — I thought I was obviously going to die. Not because the speech was illegal, it wasn't, but because — the Queen'd had Valia arrested, I knew she was upset about the speech, obviously anyone who upsets the Queen is going to be tortured to death whether or not they've done anything wrong, even if they can say under truthspell that they've never broken a law in their life." Which she can't, obviously. She's not about to confess to arson mid-committee-meeting but if you can't guess that she broke the law under Asmodeus you've got to be pretty stupid. "Or, I mean, I thought Valia might not be, she's a priestess of Iomedae, but if the Queen'd had me tortured to death everyone would just have assumed I'd done something to deserve it, no one cares what happens to random Calistrian priestesses."

"And I also figured — obviously the guards were going to just do whatever they want with me, in the meantime — the person who was asking me questions about what happened told me they weren't allowed to mistreat me, and I thought she had to be very stupid, to believe that. —Uh, she had me Charmed, is why I thought she was stupid and not just lying.

But actually they didn't do any of that? She just... asked me questions, and Charmed me and read my mind, and she talked about having someone cast a Truthtelling but she didn't end up actually doing it. And — one of the first things I said to her was that the Queen was Evil and she should quit her job, and they didn't even have me punished for that. —She isn't Evil, I was just — confused. Anyways. After the questions they let me talk to Valia, and gave me food, and let me write letters, and even once I was all alone by myself none of the guards tried to torture me or force themselves on me or even just rough me up a bit for fun.

And they let me go after, obviously." This is less impressive if you don't know about the arson but it's honestly still pretty impressive.

"...so I actually think, at least in Westcrown, we're doing shockingly well, way better than I'd have expected if you'd asked me beforehand? Like, just about the only thing I think they could've done differently, apart from not arresting me in the first place, is giving me back my holy symbol when they let me out, which is — a really tiny point compared to everything else. And so a lot of what I'm thinking about is — how do we make sure that everyone in the whole country gets treated like that. 

And some of that is rights we already voted on, like the right not to be raped and the right to not have someone threaten you into sleeping with them and and the right not to be tortured during interrogations — although, uh, we might also need to say that guards can't just torture you for fun while they're waiting for your actual punishment, I don't know how you'd write it in the law, just, if they'd waited 'till I got to my cell to torture me that wouldn't have been okay either.

But then I was also thinking it might be good to have — a right for the guards not to beat you up even if they don't actually torture you, and a right not to be punished as if you'd broken the law even if you made the Queen or a noble really mad unless you actually did something wrong, and a right to send letters from prison, and a right to be fed at least once a day unless you're being starved as part of a punishment, and a right to pray as long as it's not to an Evil god or a god from the Lower Planes, and maybe a right to be able to prove with magic that you didn't do anything wrong, except I'm pretty sure we don't have enough wizards for that and I don't want to have to let Evildoers go just because there wasn't a wizard. But if there's wizards around you should use them to check, it seems like that's good to make sure you don't execute innocent people and make sure you don't let Evildoers go free. And obviously you can't just say they can't arrest anyone innocent, since you won't know for sure in advance, but if someone keeps someone way longer than the seven days that we all voted on this morning and they were actually innocent, the person who gave the order should be punished for it. With me they only needed, like, a day. And if they put you on trial, you should have the right to a magistrate who's been ensorcelled to be fair, or who's a paladin, or who's going to be Truthspelled, or something, to make sure that the magistrates don't just ruin the whole thing." There are a bunch of other things that would've made things easier for her but a lot of them would let people get away with it if they'd hurt innocent people, so she's not going to suggest them.

"...also I found out later that when they were asking Valia questions they got her drunk and then made her sign a statement that was — pulling a lot of Asmodean trickery with the words, to make it sound like she did things that she didn't. And Valia can't even read, I don't know if they even told her what she was signing to. So I think we should make a law that if you've arrested someone and you want them to sign to something, and they can't read, you have to read it out exactly to them. And Lluïsa thought maybe there should also be a law about not getting prisoners drunk, and that makes sense to me too, if someone's too drunk to think straight you might think they're innocent when they're actually guilty or guilty when they're actually innocent, but she thought Delegate Bainilus might know more about that."

Jilia writes this down herself, since her scribes went out and it's not worth having her bodyguard do it.

- No torture of prisoners in custody (even outside interrogation)

- All rights of the innocent kept in custody until convicted

- Right to be fed in custody

- Right for prisoners to pray to permitted gods

- Right to prove innocence by spell (if feasible to get detect thoughts/truthtelling) (especially for capital offenses)

- Consequences for long imprisonment of prisoners ultimately not convicted

- Right to a judge guaranteed fair (paladin/geased/required to testify to fairness under truth magic)

- Right not to be befuddled by drink as prisoners

- Right to know the true content of any confession before signing it

"I don't know much more than anyone else about using drink as a tool of interrogation, though I'm sure it offends Cayden and he's close to my heart. I'd want to compare to other countries - Andoran, Molthune, and Lastwall, perhaps Galt. Maybe the other alternatives are worse."

"I think this list covers everything you mentioned, Avenger, and perhaps I should also ask the Queen what code of conduct she has been expecting of the guard here in Westcrown, and make it part of the law. There may be problems with that but if it works for this city that is optimistic it will work, at least, for the other cities and towns."

"Is there anything missing, and do you want to take questions before we bring the scribes back in?"

"Uh, you missed not being beat up by the guards even if it's not torture, and being allowed to send letters. And I think I explained the second one on your list wrong — I was thinking, like, if someone didn't actually do anything wrong, you shouldn't convict them of a crime they didn't do, even if they made a noble really mad.

And, uh, I can take questions if people have questions? ...Does anyone have questions?"

"I'm pretty sure it's already illegal to falsely convict someone, but I can add it."

- Right not to be falsely convicted

- No assault of prisoners in custody (including beatings that might not rise to assault)

- Right for prisoners to send letters

"The chief difficulties with these rights I see," he notes, "are difficulties of implementation. Food is a cost, you need an Abadaran for truly reliable truthtelling and there aren't enough clerics of Abadar for every case, and even an honest judge may have a corrupt jailer. The more we must track, the greater the cost to the Crown, and so ultimately a balance must be struck."

"I also think the right to send letters is difficult. If we arrest a cleric of Norgorber, he may have confederates he wishes to warn. Should we permit him to do so?"

"...No, that does seem like it would be bad."

She is absolutely not going to explain about writing the paladins about arson but it's not like that's the only reason she cares about letters. "One of the things I was worried about when I got arrested was that I'd die and not be able to tell anyone some of the things the azata said and then the laws would be worse. I don't know if writing letters asking the paladins to tell people actually worked but I think it was better than nothing, and most people aren't going to be in that specific scenario but there might be other things they really need to say that are important and not Evil. Like maybe they've got kids who'll be all alone and they need to make sure someone brings them to an orphanage.

And then also if there's no way for prisoners to tell anything to anyone outside there's no way for them to tell anyone about their other rights being violated.

With the first thing you could just say that any letters they write have to be read by someone from the prison first but that wouldn't work for the second thing, I'm not sure if there's a way to fix that."

"Some means of ensuring that rights cannot be invalidated by removing all way to call for them seems important, but I'm not sure letters are the best means."

- Some right or protection that those in custody (or elsewhere?) can make violations of their rights known

goes on her list.

"Actually, hmm, we already discussed right of petition. If there was the right to send letters, and the guards or prosecutors were permitted to read them, unless it was a petition to the Queen or some intermediate lord, that might do."

"What about prisoners who can't write?"

"They gave Valia a secretary, but it might be hard to do that for everyone who can't write if you're somewhere with a lot of them." Victòria is honestly pretty confused about how someone could go to school and not learn how to write but apparently it does happen.

"I wonder how much we could do this with the right to counsel from a good priest, cleric or lay. The priest could check if there's any beatings happening, and would take letters but wouldn't do evil things like helping a thief cultist warn his friends. Could also try to talk about good and repenting, and tell good churches if the charges are unfair, lots of things. Seems easier to have the priest do this than a secretary and a mail carrier and whoever else. Maybe we don't have enough clerics, but they can train new lay priests for this?"

"That seems reasonable as well. ...Shall we bring the scribes back in?"

"I'm fine with them coming back." She's honestly not totally sure why Delegate Bainilus thought they needed to send them out in the first place, it's not like she's keeping it secret that she was arrested, but noble politics are complicated.

Because it's generally frowned on to admit to being arrested, and she thought Victoria might admit to things she wouldn't want everyone to know.

"Then we'll call them back."

- Right for counsel of virtuous churches in custody

And then one of her clerks will make copies of the new parts of the list.

“If we’re doing rights about law and prisoners today, any news from the justice committee on those?”

He wants to ask if they’re working on another good thing, like the right they just made about being taken prisoners. Or something bad that they need to be racing to stop. But can’t ask that directly, in this room.

"Ser Jornet would know better about Judiciary, but earlier today Urban Order was considering codifying the list of punishments and executions, and I, Ser Cansellarion, and Archduke Narikopolous could not convince them to adopt a policy which would respect the rights we drafted last week about torturous treatment, so I'd like to get those assembled and bring it to the floor tomorrow."

"Today on Judiciary we mostly talked about assizes and how to obsolete them. The broad shape of the plan now out for drafting by one of its members was that there'd be provisional bailiffs with some paladin supervision."

So, it's a race again. To stop torture now, and to get enough rights that the switch from paladins to normal men doesn't go horribly wrong. Well, rights committee won the last race, so it can be done. 

"Think the floor would go for something like a ban on any punishment worse than what Lastwall does? Don't think they can call that radical, and it sounds like we need something simple and fast." 

This means no spending the whole committee on edge cases and debates about good and evil. 

"Well, what punishments do they have in Lastwall?" Lastwall is Iomedae's country so probably it'll be fine, except that she picked Chosen Artigas as a priest so maybe not.

"Lastwall performs executions by long-drop hanging - it's quick, unlike many short drops - but I don't actually know what they do for sentences that don't merit execution."

Enric has no idea either. But he did think a lot yesterday about what Xavier said at the end of last rights committee, and came to the conclusion that copying the paladin country is the best strategy. Iomedae set up the country herself, the Iomedaeans said. So, most likely, they already have all the answers on how bad a state has to be to make itself strong enough to fight evil. 

That's very weird but maybe if everyone there is like Valia no one ever does anything Evil enough to deserve being tortured to death? Or if they don't have Final Blades maybe they're figuring most everyone will get what they deserve in the afterlife. If they don't have enough priests and wizards to make sure they never get the wrong person, it would make sense to be really careful about that sort of thing, your afterlife trial isn't going to get confused about whether or not you've murdered an innocent person.

"I assume they use lashes and indentures, and presumably not spiked whips. I don't know what else. I'm comfortable voting for banning anything Lastwall doesn't use. Let's try... this?"

All citizens of Cheliax have the right, if convicted of a crime, to be punished only by means which are no more torturous than necessary for public safety and public order. Any sentence prohibited by Iomedae's nation of Lastwall at the time of adoption of this right is considered in violation of this right unless and until consultation with the Church of Iomedae confirms otherwise. The convicted may accept other punishments if the court offers one and the criminal prefers it, such as the Final Blade.

"I think in forty years we'll probably want more flexible rules, but for now trying as hard as we can to be strictly Good seems like the best way to recover from Asmodeanism."

"I don't think it's a good idea to vote for just copying Lastwall if we don't even know what Lastwall does." She's pretty sure she disagrees with Lastwall here but it would be kind of a stupid idea to vote for a law like this even if she didn't.

"I think it less likely that Lastwall has a list of prohibited sentences than that the law only provides for a specific whitelist."

"We can say 'not permitted by' instead of 'prohibited by', then. I think your objection is reasonable, Delegate Ferrer, if you don't trust Iomedae, but personally I do. Even if Lastwall is too restrictive, Her church won't be."

"I don't think Lastwall is going to be doing anything super Evil? But I wouldn't — if there were a country where everyone was a Calistrian, I wouldn't want to just copy everything they were doing either, if I didn't know what it was. ...And also Iomedae picked Chosen Artigas as a priest even though he used to be an Asmodean priest who tortured innocent people to death to support Asmodeus, and — I don't know how to explain this well, I can try again if it's confusing — but I don't want to trust that a god who would do that will always do the right thing? And I definitely don't want to just automatically trust her church, when some of the people in her church used to be priests of Asmodeus. And the Lastwall rules might be fine, but I don't want to just assume they definitely are and then be stuck with them for forty years."

"Do... you have any reason to believe that Select Artigas's repentance is less than sincere... that possibly we should know about...?"

She's a Calistrian and doesn't believe in redemption.

Sure but you have to follow up on this sort of thing just in case.

"...I don't... specifically know of him torturing any innocent people to death since Iomedae picked him? But that doesn't mean — if I were a god I wouldn't pick priests who'd tortured any innocent people to death, even if they'd stopped. And it seems like... if Iomedae sometimes thinks the thing to do with people who've tortured innocent people to death for Asmodeus is to pick them as priests... there are probably other things where we'd also disagree on the right punishment? And I still don't understand why she'd choose someone like him so I don't know whether we'll have small disagreements or big disagreements."

“I talked to Select Artigas, first day of the convention, and I saw him do a healing channel.” 

"I'm not saying he's lying about being a priest of Iomedae, if he were just lying it wouldn't make me trust Iomedae less."

"If I had heard any misconduct complaints about Select Artigas they might be confidential so I won't claim not to have done so, but I believe he is a genuine Select doing his utmost to serve Iomedae, and that this implies he is not going to torture people, because torturing people is Evil."

"I'm not saying I think he'd go torture innocent people? I'm just saying that I don't want to trust that Iomedae is always right about everything."

"Because She won't allow torturing people enough to suit you?"

"I don't know how much torturing people she allows? Maybe if we check it'll turn out it's the right amount. But, uh, in this case the problem is that she's allowing too much torturing people. By picking someone... who tortured people." Victòria really doesn't think this is very complicated.

“I wouldn’t think a Chosen ever would be turned to good, but before the convention I’d have said the same thing about a lawyer. Heaven is good at taking evil people and turning them good, I think, better than I expected.”

“Agree that it’d be better to know what Lastwall does instead of just trusting. But I trust them—“

The rest of that sentence, ‘more than what the other committee will come up with if they win the race’ is saying bad things about people. He almost didn’t catch himself Before he said it.

"Avenger, She isn't allowing any torturing people at all. He isn't torturing any people."

He nods along with the paladin.

"I don't see how the fact that he's stopped now changes whether I should trust the Lastwall rules are good when I don't even know what they are? I'm not saying — I know we're not allowed to punish people for things they did before the amnesty." At least not legally. 

Enric hopes that Iomedae doesn’t allow any torture, but also remembers how no one agrees what that word means. He’s heard that in Iomedae’s country, demon cultists are burned at the stake. He doesn’t think that’s true, but isn’t sure.

"I trust Iomedae," in some specific areas, "But I'm also not sure that we can pass a law if we don't know what it means. How are people supposed to follow it?"

“Is there a way to learn what Lastwall does before the committee ends? Send someone to find someone from there? Or a book?”

"Some of the other paladins are from there, I can go ask one to step in."

"That's probably best. We can wait a few minutes."

Off Angela goes to find a Lastwaller.

And a few minutes later, a somewhat Galtan-looking male paladin arrives.

"Ser Jornet said you wanted a summary of the punishments used in Lastwall?"

"That would be great. Delegate Bainilus suggested that we pass a law about only being allowed to use the punishments Lastwall uses, but we don't, uh, know what those are."

"For civilian punishments, there is execution by long-drop hanging, which is a quick and nearly painless death. Serious offenses which aren't capital may receive permanent exile. Maiming, though that has practical barriers recently. Hard labor for a specified term, either year-round or only in the off season, is permissible. Whipping is inflicted for a number of crimes. Fines and confiscation of property, of course. And, though I would not recommend you permit it with what I've seen of Chelish magistrates, judicial discretion allows a condition of parole, with another sentence which is suspended if the convict can agrees to comply with the instructions given, or dropped if they comply for the full duration specified."

"For military punishments, not all of those are allowed, but penal battalions and collective punishment of the unit are allowed. And of course you can be stripped of rank."

"...do people in Lastwall just almost never do really serious crimes?"

"It's rare. But there are quite a few executions a year."

"These seem like punishments that might work if — almost everyone is Good, so you hardly ever have to worry about people breaking the law. But — look, I know I already lost the vote on not ever torturing people during executions, but even if we just look at the regular punishments — the only thing between whipping and maiming is fines, and fines are a pretty bad punishment for most crimes. Even if you don't want to do any torture, even not during executions, you're still missing plenty of things that aren't torture. Like, uh, beating people, branding, starving someone or not letting them have anything to drink, lots of things like that. And I don't know if Lastwall has rules about only using a horsewhip but if you do then you're banning a lot of the punishments normally covered by whipping, too.

And so you're basically saying — uh, for context, Delegate Jornet, you said you weren't from Cheliax — in Cheliax it was normal for whoever did best on a test, or sometimes even just the homework, to whip whoever did the worst. Uh, to be clear, I know that was apparently Evil, just, when I think of getting whipped with a horsewhip, I think of the time I didn't realize the books had changed and put something that we weren't supposed to believe had happened anymore in a history essay. So — I mean, it depends on what your rules about whips are, but — if we only used the Lastwall punishments it'd be kind of like saying 'either we can punish you the way we'd punish someone for messing up on a history test, or we can maim you, no in-between.' And, sure, you can always add more lashes, but I think there's lots of things where we'd want to have something else in-between to do."

"Denying a prisoner, whether criminal or military, any of food, water, or sleep, is explicitly forbidden, except under circumstances where the jailors and their allies are also being denied them to the same degree by circumstance. That's considered torture. I don't think there's an explicit policy on branding or forms of beatings other than lashes, there's a philosophy that the legal code ought to be simple and that includes the range of punishments that are permitted. I would tentatively expect branding to be permitted if the Master of Justice thought there was a need for another intermediate punishment, but as a fairly serious punishment since visible brands are a permanent stigma and most crimes do not merit that."

Blink blink. "...uh, what other sorts of things does Lastwall consider torture? Like, I'd think of torture as, like, flaying someone alive, strappado, having them eaten alive by animals, that kind of thing, even if it doesn't actually kill them, not something like just not letting them eat for a couple days. Would you say... using a scourge on someone is torture? A spiked cat? Cutting their crime into their skin? Using Acid Splash on them?"

Okay, but spiked cats are kind of torture, though. Maybe if she had felt other torture she would feel differently. She's not a torture connoisseur.

"Acid splash is certainly not permitted outside combat conditions, and I struggle to imagine a method of... carving a crime into the skin... which would not also be torture. Especially relative to branding which achieves the same result. We do not used spiked cats and I struggle to imagine any reason we would start, that seems like an unacceptable additional cost in required healing and risk of disease for minimal benefit in deterrent. A leather scourge has lower cost but similarly minimal benefit. Torture is, centrally, inflicting pain for the purpose of pain. Pain is intended, in punishments, for other purposes; deterrents can be established with pain. But the pain is never the point, and causing additional pain that does not serve the true purpose, or causing unnecessary pain as in starvation, is Evil.   ...Also, sentences to labor are as effective as maiming in many cases and produce a benefit to society rather than a cost, and would generally be used for offenses between 'lashes until unconsciousness' and maiming."

It is a known flaw of people from Lastwall that they look down on everywhere else as barbaric and uncivilized, and Mandraivus is fully aware that this is not conducive to administering justice fairly on assizes and so has practice at resisting this impulse. Also this is a Calistrian and she's therefore probably Chaotic Evil, though she's not strong enough to detect. But sometimes Cheliax makes it really, really difficult.

"There were many occasions on assizes where I thought a sentence of labor of some kind would be far more - instructive - and useful than anything I was able to implement in practice."

"...If you're against hurting people for the sake of hurting them I don't get why you're okay with whipping either?" (Victòria thinks that's a really stupid thing to object to but maybe people in Lastwall just almost never do anything that they deserve to suffer for??? Or maybe Lastwall is worse than she thought, it could be either.)

"The promise of swift whipping when caught is a strong deterrent for many petty crimes." At least in Lastwall. "Conducting it with a leather scourge or a spiked whip rather than a horsewhip is not assessed to make the deterrent significantly stronger and so using those is out of line. It seems plausible that separating the punishment from the horsewhip used in infernal schools is a sufficient reason to allow and prefer the scourge."

The school punishment precedent probably matters here, and does explain some things he'd already noticed about how people responded to whipping on assizes.

"...I don't know what all of those words mean. Could you maybe say the first sentence again but, uh, not like a lawyer?" Probably everyone is going to think she's an idiot but it seems pretty important to understand what he's getting at!

He does not sound irritated.

"If people who might become pickpockets or public brawlers or other petty criminals know that they will most likely be caught and then whipped, the prospect of the pain discourages a great many of them from committing those crimes. Especially if they've been caught once before. Most petty crime is impulsive for small personal benefits and the prospect of significant pain and embarrassment in the near future is enough to outweigh it. But Iomedae, in life, did not think it matters very much how painful the punishment is, as long as it is swift and certain, and Her church has found this to be true."

This is an interesting practical explanation that had not occurred to her. She should take some time to think about it for the purpose of running Kintargo.

"Oh, that makes sense, I didn't know there was a word for that." She's still pretty confused about why Lastwall cares so much about why you want to give people what they deserve, but she's not unfamiliar with the idea that people are less likely to break the law if you hurt them over it. And it sounds like this is mostly a punishment for minor crimes like getting into fights, where you don't need to hurt them that badly.

"But yeah, I think there's a few reasons why that won't work if you just copy over Lastwall's laws exactly to Cheliax. First of all, like you said, people probably care a lot more about not being whipped if they aren't already used to it happening to them in school. Second of all, you said it needed to be 'swift and certain' to work right and we're not really doing so great about either of those right now — that might work better in Lastwall where there's loads of priests of Iomedae? I'm not sure. And third of all, this is kind of related to the second part, but there's some people who don't expect they'll be punished for anything they do, and they're mostly right about it — like, there was a nobleman the other day who chased a delegate around with a sword for insulting him, and he didn't get punished at all, because he's a nobleman. ...Admittedly you can't fix the third thing just by making the punishments worse, you also have to actually punish nobles and not just say that trying to kill people is fine when they do it."

Enric is aware of the idea that beating someone means he'll think twice about doing it again. Unless he's very stubborn. (Enric sometimes had to be very stubborn, but would rather not do it again.) He is also aware that school is terrible, but doesn't see how that's related. 

"Judiciary can figure out how to stop nobles from committing crimes, but I think in most cases it'll be the other way around. We're making a list of some magistrate or baron can do to us, not things that happen to powerful people. So I'd rather not make them worse."

"I do not expect harsher punishments would compensate for those punishments being slower or uncertain, from what I studied, but I'm not familiar with the full practical or theological debates on that topic. It's generally understood that hurting others is bad for the person carrying out the sentence even when it's necessary, and worse the greater the harm inflicted, which is another reason to favor the mildest punishments which work. That is more likely to be worse in Cheliax than better."

"And we do not have hereditary nobility in Lastwall, but those with authority are held to stricter standards, not laxer ones, as conditions of their oaths. Her Majesty seems to have adopted a similar policy in directing her attention before the amnesty, so I imagine she agrees." But he's not going to commit to it himself without consulting someone better at politics.

Blink blink blink. "—Wait, why does Lastwall think it's bad for the person doing the hurting? Assuming that you're hurting someone who did something actually bad, I mean, I get why it's bad if someone makes you hurt someone who doesn't deserve it." That is not her only disagreement here but it's the most confusing disagreement.

Calistrians. "The core of Evil is doing harm to others. It does not matter what they have done; doing harm to others is always more Evil than not doing that, and the Good in the mortal soul rebels against it even when it is necessary. Convincing yourself that your victims deserve it is one of the more common ways that said rebellion takes form. Even if you are punishing very Evil people in order to protect many others, and even if you have the blessing to be painlessly committing them to a final blade rather than sending them to Hell or the Abyss, punishment encourages Evil habits of mind; Lastwall rotates the duty of execution among many to avoid encouraging those habits among any of them. Paladins are generally not assigned primarily to administering justice like the assizes, for the same reason; it is very easy for it to make us fall, because we are not immune to those habits of mind. Punishment of all kinds is a lesser evil, not good in itself."

This is almost certainly not going to convince Ferrer, but it might save her from damnation so Jilia doesn't have the heart to interrupt.

"...I don't think that makes sense. Like, if there's someone going around killing a bunch of innocent people, so you execute him, that's not Evil, or, uh, how did you say it, it's not 'more Evil than if you didn't do that,' it would be way more Evil to let them just get away with killing a bunch of innocent people! And it wasn't Evil for Valia to rebel against the Asmodeans even though it definitely hurt plenty of Asmodeans, and everyone agrees it's fine to hurt people in self-defense unless they're, like, an Asmodean who thinks you should just be a loyal obedient little girl and let them do whatever they want to you. If you call that sort of thing Evil then you're not using Evil in a way that means anything, you're not talking about right and wrong anymore, you're just making up words.

—And I'm not just saying that because I'm a Calistrian, either, I talked to an azata last week and it said that if there was someone going around being super Evil it was fine to kill them. We had some disagreements but none of them were about whether it was literally always Evil to hurt people no matter what, since that's... obviously stupid.

...also that didn't actually answer my question but I don't know how to explain my question differently."

"It is always more Evil than stopping them some other way. Sometimes that other way does not exist, or is beyond your capability; or it's within your capability but at great cost, and you must triage and decide whether that cost is worth it. Some cases are very straightforward; self-defense is preventing an Evil done against you with a comparable or smaller Evil done against the attacker, and I've never heard of anyone but Shelynite extremists refusing self-defense. But it's an Evil, and our natures know this, and indulging the impulse to harm someone encourages the Evil in your own nature and makes it more likely you will do other Evil in the future that is less justified. An azata... well, I would have to speculate, but it's an outsider and its nature is much more fixed than a mortal. A Chaotic Good human who followed that advice would be in danger of drifting to Neutral and then Evil if they did it often. This happens to a lot of adventurers, and to almost all Avengers of Calistria; those who've reached third circle and show their personal alignment to a detect are, if I remember the figures right, majority Evil and less than a tenth Good."

Those numbers sound really fake. Probably he's not totally making them up, it would be a stupid thing to lie about, but maybe... Good priests are more likely to die before they hit third circle? Because a Good priest is going to be trying not to kill innocent people, and that's going to make it more likely something kills them, like how if she were Evil she could maybe have gotten away from the guards who came to arrest her.

"So I disagree with a lot of that, obviously, but I think the most obvious thing is — I think you're wrong about what people's natures know, in places outside of Lastwall? If people in Lastwall almost never hurt each other then I guess maybe it makes sense that your consciences don't really understand it the way people in normal countries do, but—

—when someone is trying to hurt you very badly, not for a good reason but just because they can, your nature isn't saying 'don't hurt them, that would be Evil.' If it did say that you should ignore it, but that's not what it's saying, it's saying — as loudly as it can say just about anything — that you should stop them, whatever it takes. And — that doesn't mean everyone does try to stop them, if they're scared of worse happening to them if they try to fight back, but — the voice in your soul that knows right and wrong knows you should fight back, even if you fail. I don't think this is just for Calistrians. Even if you're a scared thirteen-year-old that vaguely knows Calistria is the goddess of whores and nothing else, the voice is still there. 

And our natures know the difference between hurting someone like that, hurting someone who deserves it, and hurting someone who doesn't. Maybe it's not something you can feel in Lastwall, if almost no one does deserve it, so you never learn the difference. But my soul certainly knows the difference between fighting against rapists or people who murder innocent people or Asmodean priests, and randomly deciding to go hurt innocent people for no reason. —Uh, to be clear, I'm not disagreeing that some people's souls are... bad at this... and will decide that, like, every single Hellspawn deserves it even if they aren't actually Evil. That's Evil, I'm not defending that.

Also I don't know what 'triage' is, but that's probably less important.

I'm not sure this is actually relevant to whether we should just copy the Lastwall punishments or not, just, I think you're wrong."

What does he even say to that, other than 'you're one of the Evil ones'. You shouldn't say that while doing politics.

"That way of thinking is not reassuring to me. Much of the war with Belkzen could describe their motivation that way with all apparent honesty, and that's not a Good war even on our side. Men whose brothers and fathers died to the orcs want to strike back against them for the injustice and the pain they caused, and this makes them do Evil with false confidence that they are acting justly. Striking down the Evil to protect the others they will hurt later is, at least usually, Good; striking them down because you believe they deserve it is not, as far as I've ever learned. I've been told angels regret every devil and demon they kill, even though it needs to be done, because they hate killing and inflicting pain even when the need to protect others wins out."

"I have seen a lot of Chelish people on assizes, and I think you are wrong that they are different from Lastwall people. They seem mostly distinct in that nearly everyone has already suffered much of that damage before adulthood, and have silenced much of the internal voice of Good one way or another. That is certainly relevant to what punishment code is appropriate, but I don't think it suggests more violence would be good for people."

If she gets an early judgment and comes up Maelstrom he's wrong. But he's not. Cheliax is terrible.

"...If you don't need any more information from me, delegates?" Please say he can leave.

Well, she doesn't know anything about the war with Belkzen. She didn't even know there was a war with Belkzen. Or what Belkzen... is. Or why they're fighting it if they think it's Evil. It kind of sounds like it involves getting revenge on people's family members for things they didn't do, which does sound bad, but they're orcs so it's hard to say for sure one way or another.

"I don't think I had more questions about Lastwall's laws but I don't know about everyone else."

Xavier looks at Victoria with pity, for a moment, before then turning to Mandraivus. "Thank you for coming to speak with us."

"Thank you, Ser Saiville, that was very helpful. We'll ask for you again if there comes a need."

And he will vanish as fast as he can, with a poorly-concealed relieved look.

Delegate Requena i Cortes is making some sort of face at her. You'd think it would be easier to read the foreign nobles, they don't try to hide their emotions half as much as Chelish people other than her do, but besides showing their emotions more they also show them differently, and also half the time it feels like they're assuming you're familiar with the exact sort of noble social games they're used to, which are not the same as the noble social games she's used to. This face in particular really doesn't look similar at all to any of the sorts of faces she's used to normal Chelish people making.

She's pretty sure people besides Delegate Saiville said things she wanted to respond to but she got distracted arguing with him and now she's forgotten the other things she wanted to say. She's going to try looking around the table and seeing if anyone brings them up again, just in case that works.

"Is anyone else uncomfortable with adopting Lastwall's punishments, as amended by consultation with Iomedae's church if we need it for things like using the scourge?"

"With the addition of imprisonment, I am not."

"Imprisonment seems a" luxury, but maybe an affordable one "wise addition provided it remains affordable with adequate protections on the prisoners, the same way as labor sentences."

"Does this allow paying off fines through indenture? Indenture probably wants to be changed, but I don't know if we want to ban it." Because she's planning to use it for her anti-bastardry plans.

See, she was right. Even if you don't count torture or normal things that for some reason Lastwall people think are torture, the Lastwall rules were missing important punishments.

Finding out what Lastwall actually didn’t take days with no result, like it did for mining, and they almost missed something important. Enric notes that and reminds himself that it’s unfair to think of Victoria as just someone young and angry, with a heart in the right place but missing some wisdom. Even if it usually feels like they’re all arguing about evil instead of getting more rights, there’s a point to it.

Separately, once the committee is over he needs to ask for the transcript of what the paladin said. It was for Victoria, but he might need that speech about doing evil while fighting evil, too.

"I did expect we might have some things like that, which is why I wrote we could ask the church to approve other things." Actually she wishes she'd asked Ser Saiville about it but oh well, she's not calling him back now. "I can add that we'll immediately ask for imprisonment, lashing with the scourge, and probably beheadings since that's a traditional noble right and it seems harmless to permit it."

"I don't think we should give nobles special rights about how they get executed! If there's crimes where the punishment is beheading for everyone, that's fine, but there's no good reason to have it just for nobles if it's a crime where you'd normally do something worse."

“Speaking of beheadings, do we want to ask for the final blade too? I’m still not sure about it, but the queen seems to like it, and the church might have an answer on how evil it is.”

"Does it do any harm if we let nobles go get their heads chopped off? That's not exactly a right I want to myself."

"...well, if you'd normally do something worse than beheading, I don't think you should go lighter on them just because they're a noble. I guess it's okay if you're using it to be stricter on nobles, like how the paladin said Lastwall does it."

She hesitates. "...And probably it makes sense to have the Final Blade for at least some crimes," she says uncertainly. 

"Many of the nobility will be angry if we forbid execution by beheading, and nothing here requires that it be reserved for them. It is not worth fighting about a right which is, if we've promised clean quick deaths to all, slightly about perceived dignity and otherwise basically symbolic. Also, yes, the Final Blade, that should probably be stated separately."

"If you just meant beheading should be on the list I don't have a issue with that."

"That is indeed all I mean. Any further objections to, make it this?"

All citizens of Cheliax have the right, if convicted of a crime, to be punished only by means which are no more torturous than necessary for public safety and public order. Any sentence not permitted by Iomedae's nation of Lastwall at the time of adoption of this right is considered in violation of this right unless and until consultation with the Church of Iomedae confirms otherwise. The convicted may accept other punishments if the court offers one and the criminal prefers it.
This right shall take effect with the adoption of the constitution and the convention and Queen will, before that time, specifically seek out consultation with the Church for the punishments of lashing with a scourge rather than horsewhip, imprisonment, beheading, and the Final Blade, to confirm the proper methods by which these traditional punishments may be permitted.

"...I mean, I'm voting against it, but — for reasons we've already talked about, not for reasons where you could just change something small and I'd be fine with it. I don't have, like, more changes I think we should make that you'll agree to, except I think you should put the list of Lastwall punishments in the law so that people know what they're voting on. ...And I've heard a bunch of different things about who counts as a citizen and who doesn't, could we maybe make it just... apply to everyone, even if they aren't technically a citizen?"

She feels kind of sick. She doesn't understand how everyone here can just decide it's okay for people to get off easy from horrible crimes, as if it doesn't matter what they did. But explaining it hasn't been helping, and — it really seems like it ought to help, but that doesn't mean it is—

"It is my understanding of constitutions," carefully presented for political expediency, "that they are meant as, essentially, agreements between the citizens and the government, where the citizens claim rights and describe the shape of the government, then agree to obey that government as long as it respects those rights. Those who are not citizens are not included in that agreement. I would prefer to pass this, and separately consider how broadly we want to try to draw the lines of citizenship, which I expect will be contentious in both directions, whether it comes from us or from the Slavery committee or from Forests."

Is that how constitutions work? She didn't think they were saying it was okay for anyone to rebel against the entire government if they got tortured during an interrogation, that sounds really unlikely. She's still not entirely clear on how constitutions are different from just regular laws, Archmage Cotonnet read them some constitutions yesterday but they included plenty of things that weren't just rights and who was in charge of the government.

"We voted today on a law against killing people who are trees, though, even though they live in the forests? So I don't see why we couldn't write this law the same way. And, I mean, I wasn't imagining anything we wrote applied to forest-monsters, or anything like that, but I don't think it would've been okay for someone to... torture a slip to death for stealing, or something, even if they did that before we passed the slavery law. And I've seen — I don't know which of these are right, but — I've seen people say only humans are citizens, or that only people born in Cheliax are citizens even if you'd normally count them as subjects of the Queen, or that only Lawful Good people are citizens, or that diabolists aren't citizens. And for the rights I agree with, I wouldn't want to say that, like, Liushna doesn't have them because she's a bird-person, or that Delegate Requena i Cortes doesn't have them just because he was born in Molthune, or that the leftover slaves who aren't slips" (she'd thought they voted to get rid of slavery, but apparently not, or at least that's what today's arguments made it sound like) "don't have them, or, uh, that I don't have them just because I'm not Lawful Good, only I'm pretty sure most people thought that one was wrong. Or even that diabolists don't have them, there's still some things that are wrong to do to diabolists."

This feels - sloppy. For censorship they came in with a proposal and slapped some extra exceptions on to make it workable, and she's proud of that work now that she knows that the alternative was banning practically all books. But this plausibly disallows half of her own plans, and does so just because they're trying to pass something in a single committee period. She's kind of getting attached to democracy, but having to write all laws in a single hour-long session before someone else beats you to it seems insane. The reasonable thing to do would be to consult with the Church first, and then pass a law based on what they say, but apparently if they wait some other people are going to try to bring back flaying people, or something.

....maybe it'll be easier to talk the Church around on indenturement-for-fines than to talk the convention around on not flaying people. Sure, fine, just add 'convince the church of Iomedae of things' to her to do list. That sounds impossible, but so does everything else.

"I do think it should list the punishments we know are allowed."

The worst thing is they agreed this last week and punted on the details. This isn't that rushed, she was going to do this today anyway. And Jilia would actively prefer to leave this for consultation with them as an ongoing thing, not preemptively; if the government needs a new punishment, better to have them have to go ask the Iomedans than pass a new law.

"I suppose once we're listing the ones to ask about, we might as well also list the ones it will allow immediately. And Ferrer, I appreciate your goal, but I think this is a poor way to achieve it. Actually, a vote: For to amend this proposal from 'citizens' to, what was the president's phrase, 'reasoning beings res- living in Cheliax'. Against to keep it as 'citizens of Cheliax'."

Almost included Lady Eriape. That would be bad, and also stupid.

"A baby's not a reasoning being but is a citizen, I reckon."

"Ugh. True, cancel that and give me suggestions for what to say instead."

"People"?

"I read the transcripts of the Slavery committee from the first day. There are plenty of people who deny that halflings or orcs are people."

"Citizens and mortal residents?"

"I think this should say citizens. If citizens are the people who get rights, then defining them is our job anyway. Just - a different job. We can decide what citizens are and what protections non-citizens get later."

"Mortal residents seems likely to include that plant thing that tried to take a seat in the convention, and the dragons in the swamps and hills, and manticores and... you see the problem? I'd rather do as Miss Tallandria says and say 'citizen' and later we can fight over the bounds of where citizen ends and monster or foreigner begins. But if the committee wants an expansive definition for this right I will respect that request."

Also she's hoping not to draw attention to this, and avoid combining the fight to this right with the one over who should get rights at all.

Theopho would really prefer the pretty expansive definition for most things. ...Probably not for this one, adventurers can't follow this kind of rule. No one could take down a lich while restricted to a set set of punishments.

...Actually, "'Citizens and residents not outlaw.' Which explicitly excludes all undead by what I think is universal custom, and implicitly other clear monsters like manticores and dragons. Should exclude tribal orcs in the mountains but not ones enslaved in the foothills, which is probably what it needs to do." Also leaves open the possibility of allowing an outlaw back in by separate law, which probably won't be used but he likes it.

"Covers babies, too." A nod for Theopho.

"With the exception of Avenger Ferrer, we do not want judges naming men outlaw and then breaking them on the wheel."

"I don't want judges — calling every random criminal an outlaw so that they can do whatever they want to them? That's not what I've been saying, I don't think everyone who's ever broken the law deserves to be tortured." 

"I am corrected. It was my mistake."

Would that cover Nidalese recpature-raiders? She's not really sure, and it doesn't really matter.

"I have very little idea what legal customs are in sane nations for how and by who outlawry can be declared. It's not among our listed punishments and I do not know if that would be sufficient to ban doing as the archduke said."

"These are all about how you can punish people for breaking the law, right, not about every way anyone could possibly hurt other people? Could we just say, I'm not sure how you'd phrase it, but could you just say that these are the punishments that judges are allowed to give anyone for breaking the law? And it wouldn't ban fighting bandits or monsters or undead, since that's not illegal, but randomly grabbing someone off the street and torturing them to death would still be covered. And then if Liushna or someone from Molthune or... a baby, for some reason... gets put on trial, it'd be the same either way. —It doesn't handle the slave situation super well but it could help in situations where a slave actually gets a trial, rather than their owner just deciding to hurt them."

“I don’t think it makes any sense to put babies on trial? Even if it’s just from the lastwall list, that’s…”

"I heard a rumor. Don't know if it was true. The baby wasn't on trial, hurting it was some adult's sentence."

"What the fuck!!!! —I was going to say, I don't think we should put babies on trial either, but... wow. What the fuck." She doesn't like the Lastwall list but at least it would stop that.

“Haven’t heard that one before, but I believe it.”

Oh her fucking god. What do you even SAY to that.

"So do I. Many nobles competed to be... creative."

All citizens of Cheliax have the right, if convicted of a crime, to be punished only by means which are no more torturous than necessary for public safety and public order.
Therefore, no judge may assign to anyone any sentence not permitted by Iomedae's nation of Lastwall at the time of adoption of this right, unless that sentence is added to the list of those punishments permitted, through confirmation from the Church of Iomedae in consultation with the Crown. The convicted may accept other punishments if the court offers one and the criminal prefers it.
This right shall take effect with the adoption of the constitution, and the convention and Queen will, before that time, specifically seek out consultation with the Church for the punishments of lashing with a scourge rather than horsewhip, imprisonment, beheading, and the Final Blade, to confirm the proper methods by which these traditional punishments may be permitted.
The civilian punishments permitted by their present use in Lastwall are long-drop hanging, permanent exile from Cheliax, maiming, sentences to hard labor for a specified term which may be year-round or exclude the harvest and planting season, fines and confiscation of property (with appropriate methods of seizure), and whipping. Military punishments include being stripped of rank, punishing an entire unit for the crimes of a single member, and being consigned to a penal battalion.

Now, the trick is, she doesn't want to acknowledge the sleight of hand she's written here, which is entirely to try to avoid attention to 'citizen' vs. 'anyone'.

"I think you're right, Victòria, that it's simpler to say what judges can and cannot do, but I do want to play strictly by the rules and pass rights, not laws, as much as possible, so I've phrased it to make that clear." Because certain other committees aren't and she intends to protest that. "I've also added the list of permitted sentences, and I'm leaving off terms of parole because it's as much a rule of judicial procedure as a punishment and also we were advised it might not even be a good idea at the moment."

"- Iomedae is having a difficult time at the moment. You might want a fallback in case that situation deteriorates instead of recovering. Whichever of the Shelynites or Sarenrites is better established and trusted here would probably be fine. Or the Erastilians if they wish to concern themselves but I think possibly Cheliax is too urban for that to be the Sowers' comparative advantage."

"I'm here, aren't I? But I'd rather not be, if that's what you mean."

Blink blink.

The first part looks the same, except she definitely saw Delegate Bainilus change part of it, and she wouldn't have done that for no reason, so she's clearly missing something.

She reads it again.

—That kind of feels like Asmodean trickery? But she does want to make sure the good parts of the rules still apply to people like Liushna, so... maybe it's an okay kind of Asmodean trickery?

"The wording on the first part looks fine to me. If we're trying to pick another god to put in, I like Shelyn better than Sarenrae. ...And I've seen multiple Shelynites here but I haven't seen any Sarenrites, so it might be easier to find Shelynites.

And I don't think it should be allowed to punish soldiers for things that totally different soldiers did, I didn't realize the paladin was saying that was allowed. Can we leave that part out?"

"That's because they're supposed to keep each other honest, not wink while their buddy goes and ruins some girl's life."

Enric nods at that. “Wish that part was for the city watch too, from what I’ve heard here.”

"Oh. ...That makes sense but I think I'd rather just have a separate law against covering it up when other soldiers are doing that sort of thing, if a soldier wasn't doing anything wrong it's not fair to punish him for what other soldiers did."

"I think also it's useful for military discipline but not having ever encountered an actually disciplined military force in my career I'd defer to Archduke Requena, who has commanded them. Xavier, could you explain?"

"Certainly." He turns to her. "The men in a file* need to trust each other, closer than brothers. They sleep in the same tent, eat from the same pot, train on the same field, drink from the same bottle; when five are tired the sixth brings water. There are no secrets there. They are rewarded collectively for success and punished collectively for disgraceful behavior, and this builds a file that trusts each other, one that won't run when battle comes because no man will disgrace himself in front of his comrades. It yields men who will stand above a dying comrade's body because he would do the same for him, and that is an army that wins wars against all the might of Hell, and collective punishments are done because of this.

"And it is also done because it yields men who will lie, to their officers' faces, whenever it would risk another men of the file. A man cannot commit a crime without his brothers knowing unless they are very, very careful not to know and a file would no more surrender his brother to the officers than to the enemy, whatever his brother's crimes, and so they are punished together when one man commits a serious crime, because each and every one of them knew or could easily have known - and as a result of this they are very reluctant to commit serious crimes, because it risks those who depend on them just as much as it risks them, and even many evil men still love their friends enough to refrain from evil for their sakes."

(*: The term is fossilized in modern Taldane, coming from a period where the unit referred to a sixteen-strong line of pikemen.)

Nod. "If it'd be that hard for a soldier not to notice one of the other soldiers was up to something, punishing them all makes sense. I didn't realize armies worked like that."

The part about being able to get soldiers not to hurt innocent people by threatening their friends feels surprising, but now that she thinks about it maybe it shouldn't be? She's been trying to avoid doing crimes just because it would make Valia sad if she got caught. Probably if Valia would actually be punished for them, she'd try even harder. She's not Evil, so it's not totally applicable, and it's kind of weird to think about the sort of person who'll do the kinds of terrible things that got brought up on the floor this morning but isn't willing to hurt their friends, but probably there's some people like that.

Maybe she's just not used to the idea of having friends at all, and that's why it feels surprising to think about.

"It's desirable for enlisted men to lie to their officers to protect their unit? ...That's not actually important. Does this allow military punishments for civilians?"

"I don't believe it does; it's not supposed to."

"It's not desirable, but if you want an army better than Asmodeus's it is inevitable. If your men will die for each other, they'll lie for each other."

Dying for someone who hasn't done awful things and covering it up if they do do awful things really seem pretty different, but it's not like she's ever been in an army.

"Ah, I see; I was merely confused by your phrasing. It makes sense that that is so. I'm in favor of this as written."

"We do need to pick a backup church, if it's dire enough that not even experienced lay priests are going to stay available to the Queen's central government. I'm inclined to let Her Majesty pick 'an organized Good church' if Iomedae's turns down her request. Ser Jornet, anyone else, objections or clarifications?"

"Organized and Good seem like the appropriate and sufficient critiera."

And she thinks that Iomedae is under such strain that they can't guarantee the Queen will have reliable non-immediate access to an experienced lay priest. Gods of Good, what is happening in Lastwall?

Well, the Queen is Good, so probably she'll pick one of the relatively decent gods.

"If there's nothing else, then I call a vote."

She's sort of tempted to abstain, there are some good things about the law (sweet gods, sentencing someone to murder a baby?), but even if there are some good things about it she's still against it overall.

"Against."

"Still for."

"In favor."

"Aye."

"For." Uncomfortably.

“For.”

"For."

"And myself in favor as well. Seven to one, it passes. I'll bring it to the floor tomorrow. It's about time someone proposes something to go in the constitution, and not just the interim law."

Blink blink. "—Wait, what's the difference?"

Enric nods. He also isn’t sure what that is. 

"How it works in the few places which have constitutions, is that the constitution is short and sets generalities, but ones which can't be broken by ordinary law. The legislature or crown can change the law, and write very detailed proposals like the Code Cyprian, which is hundreds of pages. But if they pass a law that violates the constitution, the constitution means that law is void, judges or something like that determine this and declare it, and then it must be repealed or amended before they can enforce it."

"So if something's really important it should be part of the Constitution rather than just a regular law?"

"If it's very important and we're very sure we won't want to change it. Because that's the other half, is that it's much harder - not necessarily possible - to change a constitution. The proposal to have a new convention in forty years will be in the constitution, because otherwise it wouldn't be allowed to change it. Changing a law is an argument; changing a constitution, so far, is either a massive vote across the entire populace of Galt where they approve it four to one, or else probably a war."

Well, in that case she's definitely against the Lastwall punishment law, if they won't even be able to fix it for forty years.

She nods.

And so she'll speak against it on the floor and that will help it pass. Thank you for your service, Victòria.

"Well, with that consultation and then the discussion, this has taken a while. Shall we adjourn for the day?"

"Me and Korva and Delegate Soler have Family soon, adjourning now sounds good."

"Alright, see you tomorrow. Adjourned."

And a bit after the scribes put their pens away:

"Oh, I'll have that meeting place ready tomorrow afternoon. I'm thinking I'll call it the Kortos Tavern."

"Could you also give us directions to it? I don't know if I could find it from just the name, if the name is new."

Sure, she has some cross streets, it's further away than Cafe Isarn but not by that much.

"I'm arranging the sale today and the sign will be ready and out by lunch tomorrow." The old sign is going in the basement in case the proprietor wants to abandon it the minute the convention ends and he buys it back.

"Thanks, I'll try and spread the word around." (She's totally expecting Delegate Bainilus will have someone listening to their discussions, but as rich nobles who could be spying on them go, she's probably one of the least bad options.)

She mostly won't, but largely because she doesn't trust the prospective new Lord Mayor at all not to execute people on pretenses, or not to try to arrest her or her listeners for failing to report..

"I appreciate it."

"Thank you from me as well. Should I be getting the word about Kortos out to... the commons?" 

"It wouldn't hurt, especially for those who can't read; I'll be putting up some flyers near the hall and the palace rooms where people are staying."

"All right. We can all invite some people for tomorrow, then."

"Then I will see you all tomorrow."