"We don't have jurisdiction. The limited discovery we have already shows that the decedent is from an area with its own gods and its own afterlife system."

"So what, we just let her stay in the Boneyard forever?"

"The Boneyard is only home to the True Neutral. While we may temporarily host those unable to be judged, the decedent appears to have already had a very long life, so additional waiting is not called for."

"Let's revisit the jurisdiction argument after we have learned more about the decedent. At the moment, we don't have an option other than judging her here, but maybe we will find out about a way to return her to her proper custody.

Ms. Stoneheart, do you know where you are?"

"It does not appear to be Amenta. Or home. Or the starship. Did it explode? I had thought perhaps I would be reborn some day, as usual, should that happen."

"This is not 'Amenta', your home, nor any world on the Prime Material plane, no. This is a place for judging the souls of the dead in the universe owned by god Pharasma. I suspect you are from a different universe.

I don't know how you died.

Can you contact the god who handles your reincarnation, or describe how we might contact Them?

Does it sound to you like we are speaking in a language you understand, using words you are familiar with, at a speed you can follow?

Do you understand that you had, while alive, the capacity to take actions, and that those actions had effects on the world and on other people?

What do you know of Good and Evil, Law and Chaos?"

"...I cannot. We have no contact with the gods, and our understanding of them may well be incorrect. Our reincarnation is mediated by holy trees, which hold the souls of all the dead and place them into infants less than a month of age, before they develop a soul of their own, but again the details are not known."

(She half suspects that the gods set the whole thing up and then abandoned them. At least it's been stable for however many thousands of years. It's very frustrating and rather infuriating, but this is not really the time to dwell on that.)

"Yes. Yes. Good and evil are multifaceted and complex moral and philosophical concepts, I can expand if you wish." (She has the broad general idea correct, according to her thoughts. Healing vs torture. Kindness vs slavery.) "Law is... Rules and procedures and punishments, useful for organizing beyond people you personally know and the immediate future. Chaos is the tendency for large changes to result from small differences in initial conditions in a deterministic system."

"Given that her reincarnation is her natural afterlife arrangement, rather than a druid's whim, I would argue that we have, at most, jurisdiction over her most recent life."

"Either we have jurisdiction or we don't, and your proposal breaks all precedent and the common sense that we're here to judge souls, nothing less.

However, we may be forced to discard particular actions which we cannot place into context per Hell vs Izabetta."

Restricting inquiry to her most recent life would be convenient... and he himself just suspended a fellow judge for taking the easy way out. "What exactly is a soul in your universe? Your soul is different from the souls here, and we can't inspect it very well."

"If foreign gods are judging me, I think I should like to understand what exactly is going on and what it means for me before answering much else."

"Normally, you don't get a choice.

Given her open defiance of Pharasma, and that we don't even know if she can become an outsider, how I about I eat her now and save everyone the trouble?"

"In Pharasma's universe, souls come here after a single life, where we, on behalf of Pharasma, sort them according to their alignment, Good vs Evil and Law vs Chaos. From what I can tell, in your universe those are merely suggestions, but here they are fundamental properties of people, places, and objects.

There is a plane for each of the nine combinations of Good-Neutral-Evil and Law-Neutral-Chaos, where souls are transformed into 'outsiders', beings that are purely one alignment, unlike muddled living creatures." (There are other places souls can end up, but one, that's not relevant to the decedent; and two, ick.)

She has no salk and no weapon, but she can still glare balefully at the mouth thing while mulling this over.

"Most decedents have some idea where they're going and can, you know, argue for whatever choice they actually prefer if it's close. It's usually a bad idea, admittedly, but this trial is unusual in five different ways already, and also she has no idea what's up in any of the afterlives. I know we usually have a whole no proselytizing thing but it'd be unfair to hold a trial without informing her further. I'd even argue for releasing her outside the river of souls if she wants that, given the jurisdiction thing."

"It's possible that her gods have abandoned her universe - but I'm not making a decision on jurisdiction until we know more.

What accommodations do you propose?"

"Since we have a full court, perhaps we advocates could each give a pitch for our alignment?"

"Hm, would that satisfy you, Elysium?"

"It's not like you'd accept if I tried to keep Hell from speaking. Random order or what?"

"Is that a yes? I will select a random order."

"No objection."

"Any other proposals?

Okay."

He thinks over a text he has memorized, keeping a total of the number of letters, modulo nine. After every ninth word, he uses the running total to select an alignment.

Beware of false balance. There are no quotas in

Heaven, Nirvana. "Nirvana is first."

our task. Every soul must be assigned a fitting

Heaven, Nirvana, Elysium, Axis. "Axis is second."

Nirvana, Axis, Abaddon, Hell, Maelstrom, Elysium, Abyss, Boneyard, Heaven.

"Nirvana is the Neutral Good afterlife built chiefly by Sarenrae, goddess of healing and love. It consists largely of, beautiful valleys and mountains, with prospering cities populated by many other thinking beings, with an island at the center for new arrivals who need help the most. We believe that everyone has the capacity for Good. Whether you recognize it or not. Whether you feel you deserve mercy, and comfort, and safety, or not. Nirvana believes that you do. We believe you were trying to help, and if you failed, it only means you need help yourself. We believe that you deserve comfort and mercy, like any other thinking being, every single one. Not so free and wild as Elysium, nor so structured and purposeful as Heaven or Axis. A place where you can exist and rest. Should you be sorted Neutral Good, you will come to our land to live in peace, and to help others, if you wish. Or to live alone and simply rest from your lives of conflict, if you wish. I don't actually know what you would want in an afterlife. It may well be that Nirvana is not right for you; But I believe you deserve it, if you want it, even if it is not entirely up to me."

"Axis is the Lawful Neutral afterlife. Physically, there are patches of any environment that someone wanted enough to arrange, but our cities are particularly popular. Being morally Neutral means that we are happy to interact with people no matter their values, not that we are required to maintain some sort of balance, although a few people like that do exist. Our most famous god is Abadar, god of commerce and mutual benefit. You can buy almost anything you might wish for, including Good and Evil things, and Chaotic things too. You can sell just about any skills or items you have to offer.

Abadar is not our only god. We have many concerned with various forms of order and honor, or concerned with other things entirely while pursuing Their goals Lawfully. Markets are not our only form of interaction, although they are the most common. We accept anyone who is safe and reliable, whatever their habits and manner, including not interacting with others at all.

Many souls choose to buy improvements, eventually taking many forms, with myself as a one example. Some, valuing self-sufficiency, prefer to develop strength and refinement by themselves.

I will now respond to Nirvana, and, preemptively, to what I expect the other advocates to claim. Nirvana is a place of great charity. Axis does not, as a plane, especially value charity, but we are prosperous and life is bountiful.

Nirvana offers growth only in a particular direction, with limited variation in form and abilities. While Axis cannot match the fluidity of the Chaotic planes, we are, to repeat, prosperous. Almost any enhancement you want can be bought, and, more concretely, a very large selection of well-liked options is available for prices that most can afford. I said earlier that you can buy almost anything you might wish for, and there too, I can say more concretely that almost all of the things that people want, weighted by frequency, they can obtain after a time that they think is reasonable. On average, 98% of a person's lasting unique desires are fulfilled after a time they think is reasonable.

Despite my clarification, you can probably think of more tricks in those statements, but tricks are not our way, usually, and if they are, the possibility is announced. Hell uses tricks without warning. The Evil planes are generally unpleasant. If you want to fight for Good, the Good planes will use you more efficiently than Axis, and similarly with Evil, but Axis is more able to accommodate any other goals, if you are capable of being sorted Lawful."