Sarenith 11

Avenger Ferrer,

The body's first instinct when attacked is a very different thing from the needs of the soul, though of course the soul influences the body. In healthy people, and healthy animals, someone lashing out against them will trigger a response toward flight, uncoordinated violence, or sudden stillness, unless they are trained otherwise. But the memory of an attack will not; there is no natural instinct to take revenge. The soldier's training which makes a veteran respond with a parry, dodge, or strike is necessary for him to fight in an army, but it is typically an Evil reflex we have trained him in, even in Lastwall, because mortal perception of threats is imperfect and we tend to overreact, and overreacting with violence is Evil even when it is effective. Every time you hurt others, you damage that portion of the soul possessed by all mortals which recoils from hurting anyone else the same way it recoils from hurting a sibling, parent, or friend, and that portion of the soul is one that draws mortals toward Good, the Good of Shelyn and Sarenrae and Erastil rather than the Good of Heaven's Knight-Commander Iomedae. That war cannot be fought without soldiers trained to reject and damage this portion of their soul in some measure may, in reasons why war is Evil, be second to the deaths it causes, but it is certainly very great.

I have spoken to many people from countries other than Lastwall. Lastwall is the healthiest and avoids moral injury to its people far better than any other, but people are fundamentally the same in all as best as I can tell. The men of Molthune, Nirmathi or not, where the Reclamation had its headquarters. Some from Taldor, and Andoran, and Galt. And of course many, many from Cheliax met on assizes. Ordinary people of Cheliax remind me of men who have long been at war from anywhere else; they assume interactions with anyone not already deeply trusted will be hostile, and respond with hostility and violence in return at much higher rates than civilians anywhere else. This perpetuates itself, since the level of hostility is genuinely higher, but it is not a normal state for humans; it is an unusually Evil one, likely created with difficulty by Hell. This is bad for society and it is bad for everyone in it, and one of the important tasks for law and custom, where the convention can define them, is ending it. Everyone is morally injured and healing is difficult, and not Iomedae's domain or my expertise in any case. No one I have met at the convention seems to be an exception, though the cities seem to have had it worse than the villages I saw on assizes. Being attacked for no reason - or more accurately for no reason they understand; almost no one attacks anyone else without a reason that makes sense to the attacker - is just one way moral injury can occur, and not an exceptional one. It is likely from what you said that it is one you have yourself suffered; even likelier because you are Chelish and had an Asmodean Chosen above you, and still more because that is the type of person I understand Calistria prefers to choose. But everyone in Cheliax has suffered moral injury in Hell's grip, in most cases enormous amounts of it, and so in the same way Lastwall is the healthiest, Cheliax is the unhealthiest; everyone in Cheliax I have spoken extensively to, so far, has a great number of bad habits.

Every mortal soul has impulses toward Good and impulses toward Evil. To respond to someone who has hurt you or someone you care about by hurting them in return is an impulse present in almost every mortal soul, and an Evil one. To show mercy is an impulse present in almost every mortal soul as well, and a Good impulse. Indulging your good impulses encourages them and makes them stronger; indulging the evil impulses strengthens those instead. The more you indulge the evil impulses, the less you retain the capacity to judge when a threat is real and genuinely needs to be stopped, as opposed to pure vindictiveness which does almost nothing to discourage any further harm. Killing a man painfully, the Church of Iomedae believes, is virtually always the latter. And because torment or inflicting a painful death indulges some of the worst impulses in the mortal soul, even when it targets someone who has done great wrong, it causes severe moral injury to the attacker. An Asmodean priest who has tortured several men and halflings by the time he leaves seminary has done great damage to the part of his soul that resists inflicting harm on another, and will generally not flinch from doing it again, and become more Evil in mindset and not just by Pharasma's judgment; we understand this to be a significant part of how the Church of Asmodeus ensured they could make any moderately lawful, moderately wise candidate into a priest. This does not absolve them of guilt; they are guilty of a great deal of harm afterwards, in almost all cases. But it does mean that the vast majority of Chelish Asmodean Chosens deserve our pity at least as much as our loathing or resentment; very few were like the Most High and went to Asmodeus willingly.

The same thing occurs in other circumstances.The northwestern border of Lastwall is with the Hold of Belkzen, the orc nation. We hold a long fortified line against them, and fight constantly; every few centuries we lose ground, and often we don't regain it and must fortify anew. Orcs are majority Evil, but this does not appear to be because they are born so, a number of fine orcs and half-orcs have immigrated to Lastwall and demonstrated this is not a law of nature. They are born noticeably less wise than humans, on the average, and fight each other constantly, because they perceive minimal provocations as large ones or see insult where none was intended, and respond quickly and, being strong, tough, and warlike, often aggressively. In the mind of the orcs, as I understand it, this is responding to a serious wrong and replying to it in kind. Nonetheless, they encourage evil in themselves and I understand more are sent to the Abyss than anywhere else. They are mostly Evil, but the war against them is not Good, not in the eyes of Iomedae or any other Good god; we fight it anyway because we must, because Lastwall falling would be a very great Evil. And so, unlike most wars against mortals, it is merely a Neutral war, not an Evil one. In Iomedae's day she gave great thought to the question of Belkzen; much of this in the Acts, in the time after Tar-Baphon was imprisoned before she left the Shining Crusade to perform the Seventh and following Acts and ascend. She could have conquered it; it would have prevented a great deal of Evil and made Lastwall stronger. She did not, because to kill mortals for being Evil is Evil itself. She trusted Herself to make the right decision and weigh the Evil of conquest against the Evil of long centuries of raids, but She believed, and Her church still does, that the example it would have given to mortals would have done enough Evil that it made the decision overwhelmingly against. Mortals do not know how to assess Evils against each other well, and will usually do much greater Evil in fighting Evil than they prevent, because they underrate the Evil of their own actions and overrate the Evil of their enemies. Fair vengeance would be Neutral, but mortal vengeance is almost never fair, but excessive.

Sometimes, as I mentioned yesterday, they fight us, and kill our men, and we kill theirs. Where possible, which it usually isn't, we avoid assigning militia who lost brothers and fathers to the orcs to that border, because their loss and anger makes them indulge in their own evil impulses to 'punish' orcs they find who they think may be responsible; usually this is someone from the same tribe, and not the same orc, but it is common for soldiers to convince themselves otherwise. This is awful for the soldiers, and not just in Pharasma's eyes; they are more violent when they return home, and have worse tempers and more likelihood they strike their wives or children than before. I understand that much the same happens on the side of the orcs; they torment our soldiers in retribution for family the other soldiers of Lastwall have slain. I have seen the cycle of revenge and what it does to mortal souls, and I would not wish it on anyone; the best advice I can give to anyone who seeks vengeance is to stop, immediately, to move to another town and never speak to anyone connected to their vengeance ever again. It is the only path that I have ever seen give anyone peace or a good life. As an ancient Taldane emperor once said before he joined Heaven's armies, "the best way of avenging yourself is to not become like the wrongdoer." I have given this advice to some people in Cheliax; I do not expect any have taken it, any more than they would if I gave it in Belkzen. I give it anyway, because certainly none would take it if no one suggested it to them.

I am unsure why what the delegate you consulted said came as a surprise, because I said it to you myself yesterday. It echoed what I said to you, as clearly as I could manage: stopping someone does not require hurting them. It is always, always, better to stop someone without causing harm, in Pharasma's eyes as it is by mortal codes of morality according to the philosophers and theologians who debate such things. It will often be better to stop someone violently than to fail to stop them at all, but the best is always to stop them peacefully, if it can be done, and turning them to the side of good the best of that. (Iomedae's Eighth Act - in which she convinced the Black Prince, a great Evil graveknight to desist, repent, and when she and he determined he could not change his nature, take his own life painlessly to prevent himself from relapsing - is a particular example you may find instructive. The Black Prince made it to Aroden's domain in Axis in the end.)  Calistria does not agree with this, which is why She is not Good, and Her priests generally do not agree either, which is why they are mostly Evil. About thirteen in twenty Evil, at third circle where they can read to a detect; a little less than two in twenty Good; the other five or so Chaotic Neutral like their goddess. We conjecture based on a small sample of early judgment spells that the numbers are better for those with fewer circles and perhaps as few as four in ten are Evil and as many as five in ten Neutral; Good is still very rare at around one in ten, perhaps as high as three in twenty. It is more likely that over half of weak Avengers are Evil, and you are unlikely to be one of the exceptions; Cheliax is not kind to its people and most are more Evil than average. I would recommend purchasing an early judgment for yourself with your stipend if you can arrange it, as it is very important to know if you are presently bound for the Abyss.

You mentioned yesterday that you believe that our souls know the difference between hurting someone who deserves it, and hurting someone who doesn't. I can say with confidence that you are wrong. This is not unique to Lastwall; it is true everywhere. Our souls see little or no difference even when healthy, and the effect on the soul of either is like a slow poison, which makes us see even less difference the more it touches our souls. That you see no difference yourself is evidence is evidence you have been poisoned badly already, which is not surprising, as most Chelish people have, and so have most Calistrians anywhere.

I do not know that this answers any of your objections, but it did not seem to me that any of yours answered my own either. It is things I believe you need to know and which I hope will do you good to consider. I hope that your life serves Good overall, whether that begins tomorrow or began when you were chosen by your goddess or earlier, and that Pharasma sends you to the Maelstrom or to Elysium where Calistria lives.

 

Yours,

Ser Mandraivus Saiville,

Order of the Glorious Reclamation but not speaking on its behalf,

Paladin of Iomedae but not speaking on Her behalf

He looks at this, takes out a new sheet of paper to write a shorter letter... and then throws it in the fire instead.