Oh good, someone already presented a similar idea to what he was thinking so he doesn’t have to get up to speak.

"I would certainly be happy to clarify that attendance at civilian executions shall not be mandated for anyone uninvolved with the crime." He adds language to that effect and reads it out.

"It's not only the victims who this law helps," says a sortitioned woman who spoke yesterday. "If the lawmen take your son, and they won't tell you what happened to him, and they won't tell you if he's alive or dead, I don't know if it's Evil but I wouldn't wish it on any mother. If the execution has to be in public, at least you know whether or not he's alive.

I don't know if you can make the government follow this law. But if you can, I think it's a good law."

"One minor quibble: The Count of Cerdanya asks if the government of Molthune walks the path to Hell. My paladin friend Sir Feliu Tauler informs me that seven out of ten men in the Molthuni army strong enough to detect are evil. Certainly I was before I defected. And nearly all of us were Lawful."

He'll leave it there.

"My apologies if I was unclear, but I believe His Excellency has misunderstood me. I certainly have no difficulty believing there are many Evil men in the Lord Protector's army. I merely meant to question the Archduchess's presumption that the common people of Molthune have been set on a course for Hell merely by virtue of witnessing executions. I have no reason to believe Molthune's subjects any less virtuous than the subjects of Arodenite Cheliax, if they have not pledged themselves in the service of what we have all been told quite clearly is an Evil man."

Sergi would tell them the same about Taldor, if she asked him. A nobleman doesn't go to Andoran if he can stand Taldor. But... no, she can't burn favors on this. Throw her entire soul into it, yes, ask others to follow her no.

Few people of worth can stand Taldor, but the executions are really not the central issue with it.

Okay, so, they're definitely taking some of the convicts and letting them go, or maybe torturing them to death, or maybe both, and people are against this law because they're worried everyone will find out? How are they hiding them, you'd think people would notice — no, wait, they're probably getting new bodies from the Archhealer, it's not like anyone can tell one kobold from another.

"In the town where I live, if we're not getting fancy with it, we hang people from the gallows in the town square. What are the people against this saying we should do instead? Are we supposed to spend money we don't have building a little house for the gallows so we can keep people from watching? Drag people out to the woods and cut their heads off? I don't think any of us had even heard we were supposed to be doing them privately now, do they want to hunt down and kill everyone who was supposed to have heard about that?"

This wizard's town had also not heard that they were supposed to leave all the criminals for the paladins until a paladin showed up at their walls asking if they wanted to report any crimes, but obviously no one's actually been doing that, you'd have to keep them captive for months, they'd be dead of starvation before the paladins arrived.

She kind of wants to get up and tell Delegate Bainilus that even if she was only thinking about what would happen to her, she wouldn't want executions to be totally private, but there's not really a good way to say that without telling the entire convention about being arrested. She tried asking Calistria for the spell to talk in people's heads but apparently priests don't get that one.

There are a few more people in line, but no one it would be dangerous to snub, and he'd rather end on a speech agreeing with him. "At this time I call for cloture."

The sooner people stop talking the sooner we can go home! Cloture passes!

And the vote on the bill itself?

In favor.

It's a really good thing the paladin didn't have to execute anyone when he came by her village! It sounds like they'd have needed to do it inside their house, or something like that. She didn't even know that was a rule.

In favor. She's pretty sure that's allowed? The archduchess was really upset about it, but just her, and the paladins didn't say anything about it at all.

The paladins have, in fact, been given discretion to, when necessary, conduct executions using the facilities at hand. With that being said, even setting aside the moral concerns entirely, requiring them to conduct executions publicly would be logistically complicated. Against.

Executions are great fun to watch! In favor!

In favor.

Seems like a bad idea to do something they know the Queen disagrees with? But also she's tired of all Iomedae's stupid opinions. Hmmm. Abstain.

Against, and damn them for proposing it.

They must use every tool they have to fix this country. In favor.

Blai really doesn't know on this one. Military executions are public according to the Lastwall handbook; that's how he conducted them once he was going by that set of rules. This proposal isn't about military executions but the military executions demonstrate that it's not invariably Evil to have them in front of people. And... he's going to be trying to get seminary records specifically because he realized when he spoke to that one woman whose brother was spotted as a potential cleric that it's bad when people can't know what became of someone they were invested in. He's not expecting to be able to do better than telling her what's written down in some logbook, but if he were able to physically produce her brother for her - well, would that be better, it sort of depends on what condition her brother would be in at the time - aaaand the condition someone being executed is going to be in is "dead" - but not flayed alive. Maybe it would be good for people to be able to verify that nobody's getting flayed alive. But maybe it wouldn't?? He can't think of any executions he'd personally choose to carve time out of his day to attend and doesn't know what he'd be hoping to see if there were one. And he'd want a particularly strong reason to break with something that's working well for Lastwall, and isn't sure any of these reasons are any good.

If one of the paladins will give him a cue he'll vote their way but if they won't - abstain.

The ballots are secret, Select!

(Against.)

It's not that she regrets the way she killed Guifré. It was the only way she could have managed it, and if she didn't manage to accomplish anything else at least he was dead.

But if she'd had the choice, she'd rather have watched him die.

In favor.

This could really go either way, salutary farewells and the disinfecting power of sunlight and it being impossible to keep spiritual counselors away from the condemned at the last minute - or it could be spectacle after spectacle and every show a ticket one step closer to Hell.

Against. The one concern's of greater magnitude than the other.

They should do things the way Lastwall does them. But he doesn't get how Lastwall could do it for military executions if it's evil, and they make some good points about closure. He... might feel differently about things, if he was there when they put Florena down, but he might not.

It's confusing; he'll abstain.