[What's a paladin?]

[They're good but they always keep their promises and they serve Iomedae by killing evil people - demons and undead, usually, but sometimes regular evil mortals - probably mostly using swords rather than fire.]

[Okay, uh, so you're aware, on this planet killing people is an occupation reserved almost exclusively for professional soldiers and even if you come to the confident conclusion that someone is evil you are not allowed to murder them even if your beliefs about the afterlife would suggest it to be in your interests. I guess conceivably if some diviners learn that all your beliefs about the afterlife are correct then a policy chance could be in the offing but failing that, no murders.]

He seems to shrink a little. [I'm not good in the first place and I like not being murdered.]

[I'm not threatening you, I am clarifying the local legal situation. We don't have vampires and demons, just humans, none of whom we can identify as 'evil' by magic, and our level of nonmurder reflects that.]

[Do you have humans who torture people or eat human flesh or are tyrannical or own slaves or destroy artwork or are selfish and don't give to charity? - You have charity, right?]

[We have charities. Cannibalism is vanishingly rare. I'm not sure what 'tyrannical' here is meant to cash out to. Slavery is illegal in this country. I am not aware of a major artwork-destruction situation, at least not of significant works, I assume there's plenty of attrition in kids' crayon drawings. Torture is outside of the context of consenting intimate relationships also vanishingly rare.] They've arrived at their subway stop; she gets up and shows him off the train.

Once getting off the train isn't taking up his attention he asks, [So the relationships have to be intimate? Does that mean law enforcement doesn’t torture people or that law enforcement involves having harems?]

What a question. [Law enforcement does not torture people. ...depending on how technical you get. They are not supposed to torture people and sometimes things that you could choose to encompass with the word 'torture' occur under the headings 'excessive use of force' or 'police misconduct' or something. It's sort of a hot-button issue politically. Law enforcement does not involve having harems, cops have harems at only the normal rate so far as I know.] This way to her favorite Italian restaurant!

[If people break laws do you just enchant them to stop?]

[No, there's not enough psions for that, let alone ones who specialized in creepy mind alteration. The most common sentences are fines and terms of imprisonment.]

[Wow, and you're not even trying to avoid Hell or anything.] He disapproves.

[I mean, it sounds worth avoiding, and some people have religious beliefs about the afterlife that inform their moral philosophy even though there's no definitive empirical checking to be done.] She orders him fettucine alfredo. For herself she's getting gnocchi and a shrimp scampi and a stuffed artichoke and a bowl of minestrone soup.

He's fond of this!

Omnomnomnomnom.

[You keep saying things about giving to charity and keeping promises and I'm wondering if those are - definitely the exact things that matter in this system or if they're metonymy?]

[I am a farm boy from the middle of nowhere. Your guess is as good as mine.]

[Fair enough. I ask because, like, we do have moral philosophy on this planet, and the ethicists of the world tend to think keeping promises and giving to charity are good, but I don't think I'd have chosen either as the flagship characteristic of goodness.]

[Keeping promises isn't good, keeping promises is lawful. Like - if you promise to serve the god of pain in exchange for staying alive through the Age of Darkness, that’s lawful, and also it's evil, because torture is evil. - You can torture people and be neutral, Calistria tortures people and is neutral, but she helps people escape spouses that they're really unhappy with and I think that counts as charitable enough. Or, like, people make deals with devils to sell their souls into eternal slavery in exchange for the ruin of their enemies, which is evil, and then if everyone involved keeps their promises about it they're lawful.]

[Who's Calistria?]

[Goddess of sex, revenge, and slightly weaksauce flogging.]

[...'slightly weaksauce flogging'?]

[As opposed to trying to make it as painful as possible, or as likely to leave scars as possible, or some compromise between those. Do you have the concept of hurting people less than the maximum possible amount here?]

[Yes, almost every instance ever of someone hurting someone else is less than the maximum possible amount.]

[...I guess that's true. I don't know, I'm not actually an expert on Calistria.]

[Most masochists don't have unlimited pain tolerance! Or medical budget! There's a lot of stuff people can get up to within those constraints and, for when you pick up the language, it'd be kind of gauche to call somebody's preferred level of recreational torment "weaksauce".]