A couple of people have more general questions but they are mostly outnumbered out by people who want to ask him whether various things would technically count as illegal orders:

• Is it an illegal order to order someone to pray to a Chaotic god? What about a Neutral one? Like, a regular Chaotic god, not Deskari.
• Is it still an illegal order if they technically don't order you but they do say they'll kill you if you don't obey? Does it depend on whether it would normally be allowed to kill you?
• Is it an illegal order if you capture someone who was trying to defect to the demons and your commander orders you to all get together and rough him up before you bring him in? 
• Is it an illegal order to order a new paladin to join a paladin order, or only to order them to join a specific paladin order, or not at all?
• Is it an illegal order if your commander orders you to do all the maintenance for his equipment?
• Is there some other oath they could swear to get out of conscription, like an oath not to be a soldier, or an oath not to kill anyone?

- That doesn't sound like an illegal order if the god isn't Evil but it might be one in a weird context like if they had a sidequest to root out a cell of Evil Calistrians and the order might then constitute providing intelligence to an adversary.
- If they technically don't order you it's technically not an order, illegal or otherwise, but that doesn't mean you should do it. Again, sometimes adversarial entities might threaten to kill you whether or not they are allowed to do that and part of being a soldier is not considering this sufficient reason to stand down.
- Yes, that is illegal because the ordered conduct is prohibited (with exceptions for disabling known or suspected casters, and for nonlethally knocking people unconscious when this is the only way to achieve a specific licit objective; but these situations call for broken hands and jaws in particular, and blunt trauma preferentially to the head, respectively, not arbitrary roughness.)
- It is in fact illegal to order a new paladin to join a paladin order generally or specifically! It is not illegal to order a paladin to hear them out or investigate the available orders.
- No, that's just being assigned as a batman. It would be good form for the commanding officer to formalize that but it's a normal thing that does in fact need to happen and is legal to delegate.
- They could join an acknowledged pacifist order, if one'll have them. There are the buffs-only Sarenrites, for instance, who he will not order to wield weapons. They should know that this won't get them out of serving in the army altogether.

The guy with the question about roughing up defectors looks nervous. The guy with the question about paladin orders runs off to share this information. Several other people attempt to come up with increasingly convoluted ways of using the fact that oathbreaking is an illegal order to get out of conscription. Someone wants to know if he'd like to know about people who've definitely given illegal orders before, so he can prioritize making sure they know about the new rules.

It is important that they know about the rule but not that they specifically hear about it from him, so if these people might react badly to being openly identified to the new commander then someone else might want to go talk to them instead of giving him their names.

Someone in the group totally disregards that recommendation and instead attempts to feed the Knight-Commander stories about all the illegal orders and things that could arguably be construed as such that his former unit commander used to give. (Sometimes he used to order people to help him smuggle in fancy wine because he thought he was too good for the Caydenites! A couple times their unit got a paladin and he ordered them to find a paladin order!)

Okay, Blai is going to give that someone the totally legal order to go inform this officer of the illegal orders rule and the fact that further questions may be asked of Blai.

He leaves, attempting (poorly) to mask his disappointment. 

They're starting to get close to the point where they were planning to make camp for the night; is there anything else he was hoping to do before then?

Nope, he's wide open if anybody needs anything but doesn't have a specific agenda.

Some of their advance scouts make it back a little before they make camp; is now a good time for a report?

Yes, what are they looking at?

The good news: they didn't observe any particularly large demonic (or otherwise hostile) forces nearby. They can't rule out the possibility that they'll be harried by a much smaller force, but the march tomorrow is likely to be safe. 

They did identify a few problems suitable for a much smaller strike force, adventuring-party-sized or a little bigger, if he thinks it's warranted to spend the resources necessary to deal with them. Here's a bandit camp, holed up in a wooded area that would be annoying to march an army through, they're not going to be stupid enough to target the army but they might take their chances with a supply barge. Here's a different wooded area full of undead beasts, tough and aggressive in a way that suggests they were killed by the demonplague, which have been harassing some of the nearby villages. There was a little rockslide over here and it uncovered some sort of... puzzle structure??... that they're assuming is probably connected to Baphomet somehow, not that they have particular evidence of it. There are a pair of bulettes hanging out in these hills. They also investigated several locations that they thought might have some kind of incubus torture hideout corroborated by several captured cultists that somehow made it to this side of the Wardstone line, and determined that it was not in fact in any of those places.

Also, Fort Suma (which they'll be passing on the next day's march) was targeted for attack concurrently with Deskari's attack in Kenabres, but did an unexpectedly good job of fighting it off, with several of its soldiers growing stronger in the process. They are willing to lend the Crusade what troops they can spare (a mix of paladins and skilled nonmagical warriors) if desired.

How was the camp identified as containing bandits?

Would they need to reallocate budget to pay for these borrowed troops or do they come paid for?

They spoke to some villagers in the area and learned that they had heard reports of bandit attacks in the area. When they saw the camp they noted that they had extremely mixed equipment in a way characteristic of bandits salvaging improvised equipment (including one wearing what was clearly armor issued by the Mendevian army), were voluntarily making camp in a wooded area, had set up traps in the area, and were much more poorly-kept than typical adventurers. They did not observe any signs of cultist presence, such as unholy symbols.

If they do a little shuffling between what's the fort's budget and what's the Crusade's budget it'll cover wages and supply for the new troops for the next two months, maybe a little longer if some of them die. After that their pay would be coming out of the Crusade's budget.

Okay. Do any platoon leaders want a softball side mission to level their men? He'll authorize a side trip to the bandit camp with an appropriate force. ...he will do this after somebody goes over with him the conscription process so he knows how inducting surrenders into the Condemned from a life of banditry works and he reworks the process to not involve an obligatory oath. He will also accompany a diversion into the undead-infested area, that sort of thing gets worse till somebody deals with it. ...if the bulettes are a breeding pair that too might have this problem but bulettes are not really central crusade activities; if any attached adventuring parties are excited to put down bulettes it's worth doing but it's low priority. The puzzle structure could be anything, all kinds of mad dungeonbuilding weirdos put puzzles in, but if dealing with the undead goes quickly he might take his party in to check it out. He appreciates having ruled out possible locations of incubus torture dungeons.

So, generally, if someone has bandits that they've managed to take alive, they'll haul them before the nearest person authorized to administer justice (which varies by area, but fortunately the army can handle it regardless). Even in Mendev they sometimes get sentenced to death, but if not, the magistrate (or whoever it is administering justice) will announce that they could by rights be sentenced to death but by the powers of mercy invested in them by the Queen they'll instead be permitted to serve in the Condemned until they die or their sentence is commuted or pardoned.

Anyone conscripted, whether into the Condemned or the rest of the army, is expected to swear that, until such time as they reach their final rest or are released from the oath, they'll be loyal to the Queen and to Mendev, uphold the Worldwound treaty, follow orders from their superiors (with exceptions designed to handle the possibility of mind control that they're choosing to interpret as covering the new illegal order rules), and not desert. The Condemned oaths generally include some additional language about renouncing whatever it was that they were sent to the Condemned for and setting their hearts on the path towards righteousness, some people think it helps them make a cleaner break with their previous lives. Conscripted clerics can usually get permission to swear to a minor variation if needed. They could probably manage to technically satisfy his rules about not ordering oaths from the bandits if they sentence the bandits to death but inform them that they'll be permitted to serve in the Condemned if they swear the oath, though that won't help with conscripts that aren't criminals.

This guy's platoon would love to go fight some bandits tomorrow, they were in the back today and basically didn't get a chance to fight. The sorcerer from this attached adventuring party just learned a new spell and is happy to go fight some bulettes. Is Blai bringing his party to fight the undead tomorrow or pulling people from one of the army's squads to accompany him?

Would anything very important be broken if they just had to recite an acknowledgment that they were being sentenced to service in the Condemned which comes with the following expectations and requirements? And they could do this in the form of an oath if preferred.

He'll bring his party for the undead; he'll alert the prepared casters that that's on the agenda so they can prep accordingly (and the others also that this is on the agenda in case they have anything else they want to do about that which isn't preparing spells).

If they're just reciting an acknowledgement they might not take it seriously! This is admittedly also a problem with getting oaths from bandits, but there are some who still have at least a smidgen of honor, and more who'll care at least a little whether they swore an oath.

He's not saying they shouldn't accept oaths if they want to produce them but they really cannot go around coercing them.

The bandits should be grateful they're getting to live at all, not complaining about the terms.

 Bandits don't have any Law left to lose, it's not like it could possibly hurt them.

  To be fair he does have a point about the regular soldiers, but you can't just not have the regular soldiers swear to uphold the treaty!

...can he get an opinion from Irabeth on this one, since she is conveniently sane, Iomedaean, and physically present so he doesn't have to wait for a letter to turn around, even if she is new to the Lastwall rules in particular.

She considers it. "The bandit case seems analogous to — let's say you'd taken a prisoner, and you weren't sure of your ability to hold him, but you were sure of his Law. I think it would be permissible to inform him that you'll let him live if he swears not to escape, if you would otherwise kill him, though not to threaten to kill him if you wouldn't otherwise in order to secure his oath. That doesn't account for the effects on the institution of oaths, but I'd guess that the damage there has long since been done, but I could be wrong. But that doesn't generalize neatly to the other conscripted soldiers — does your handbook mention whether Lastwall requires oaths of its conscripts?"

"No, it's intended for the use case where whoever you're commanding is already at the fort and I think they conscript from within the home front."

"Inquisitor Hawkblade might know, but he's back in Kenabres. Though I suppose procedures for conscripting ordinary Mendevian subjects are less urgent than the bandits in particular."

"Yes, bandits will most likely come up tomorrow and I do not anticipate rounding up farmers and bakers on my own recognizance this week. So for that purpose - does banditry in fact carry a death sentence, what about if they have new recruits who have barely been accessories yet, does that, if there is any risk that I will be presented with someone who hasn't earned a death penalty I cannot sidestep the question."

"In Mendev banditry can carry a death sentence, and bandits do sometimes hang for it, though more often than not they're sent to the Condemned. Mendev's laws would allow for a death sentence even for a very new recruit, but..." She thinks for a moment. "I expect that if the Worldwound weren't a threat and there were no Condemned to send them to, the magistrates would often be lenient in a case like that. I'm not sure how to think about whether that affects the situation."