« Back
Generated:
Post last updated:
nobody is damned until burning and damned
Griffith Young gets an afterlife trial
Permalink Mark Unread

Griffith would prefer to never die at all, but if he has to die, he would very much rather not die in a fire, a preference which reality is ignoring.

The lab door seems to be locked through some mechanism his key isn't working for, and his attempts to extinguish the fire have failed, and nobody seems to be responding to his screaming, which was initially an attention-getting attempt and at this point is mostly due to pain.

There's something his patron mentioned about making mental statements at Asmodeus that was a good idea? He really doesn't have much attention but a bit of him is attempting to think "Asmodeus, I don't want to die" in an outward direction.

He doesn't get a response, and the pain continues even as his higher cognition fails.

Permalink Mark Unread

And another soul from Golarion joins the River of Souls. There's always a lot of those. At least this one isn't a baby.

Permalink Mark Unread

As is typical, there are astradaemons attempting to devour souls in the river. As is less typical, they seem to be aiming for a particular target.

They don't manage it, though.

Permalink Mark Unread

And the soul arrives, and a trial is organized.

Permalink Mark Unread

Abaddon would like to send a representative.

Permalink Mark Unread

It's interesting that they're bothering to say that, but they're still banned from the Boneyard for posing an ongoing hazard to souls of indeterminate destination.

Permalink Mark Unread

Come now, that was regarding the River. Has Abaddon done that at trials?

Permalink Mark Unread

While Abaddon's activities at the River are more than sufficient justification for the present sanctions: Yes, Abaddon, your representatives have done that at trials. Have another copy of the relevant records.

Permalink Mark Unread

Rogue cacodaemons shouldn't count.

Permalink Mark Unread

Internal conflicts within an alignment are the responsibility of that alignment's representatives, not the Boneyard, Pharasma vs Minderhal.

Permalink Mark Unread

Okay, okay. What if Abaddon agreed to their representative being under guard by psychopomps, despite the fact that this would have a prejudicial effect on observers and their representative is willing to commit under a truth effect to appropriate conduct?

Permalink Mark Unread

What, so there can be marginally less force guarding the River of Souls from your astradaemons? No.

Permalink Mark Unread

…we could cover the costs of you buying additional river-guarding support, as assessed by Abadar?

Permalink Mark Unread

Acceptable. Your representative can meet security at the Devouring Court.

Permalink Mark Unread

And the judge of In re Young will send out notices to the other alignments that, as of In re Young, there is now a provision that if Abaddon covers various costs as assessed by Abadar, they will be permitted to send a representative who will be closely monitored by a security detail.

Permalink Mark Unread

Huh, interesting. Wonder why Abaddon cares. This is a case where the petitioner's auto-assessed alignment in life mostly varied between Lawful Neutral and Lawful Evil, so we were already planning to send a representative, but now we're marginally more interested. (Plus we're allowed to send one of the cheaper arbiter models, which is convenient.)

Permalink Mark Unread

Nirvana always sends a trained representative! The argument for Good doesn't even seem like a massive stretch this time, though they're not strongly anticipating a non-lawful alignment. The long-term implications of the ruling re Abaddon are unclear, but they'll figure things out.

Permalink Mark Unread

The petitioner made a strong and consistent effort to pursue Good aims often at personal cost, consistently acted in a Lawful manner, and acted reasonably given his state of knowledge. Heaven's sending a representative. The implications of Abaddon's presence can be discussed with Nirvana's team later.

Permalink Mark Unread

The argument for chaos here isn't great, but one of the less busy junior angels is interested in attending and willing to familiarize emself with trial proceedings enough to not screw things up for Nirvana and future cases.

Permalink Mark Unread

The argument for chaos isn't great, but the petitioner was pursuing some advances in physics that could be characterized as chaotic. Also, novel thing in court!

Permalink Mark Unread

Blah blah argument re chaos he's going to agree with whatever Hell says about moral alignment and either go with the Maelstrom on systemic alignment or bullshit something when he arrives. The courtroom will be a nice place to take a break from all these other demons and he got to the representative area for this case first.

Permalink Mark Unread

The petitioner devoted his life within Pharasma's jurisdiction to the service of a Chelish noble and died praying to Asmodeus. They're sending a representative, and they'd also really like more information on what Abaddon's up to. Plus it's always useful to prevent Hell's enemies from getting smart, persistent, devoted people who will probably be rather wise given a Break Enchantment or similar.

Permalink Mark Unread

And thus, it is into this situation that the petitioner appears: A courtroom with a four-winged masked crow in the judge's position, and eight desks, each with a representative. All of whom may look rather strange to someone used to humans, but two may be especially notable due to their circumstances.

Permalink Mark Unread

The representative with greyish skin and large teeth is asleep on his desk, snoring in a puddle of drool.

Permalink Mark Unread

The skeletal representative in black robes is wearing some hefty-looking magical cuffs and surrounded by armed guards.

Permalink Mark Unread

And the petitioner appears, looking highly confused and overwhelmed.

Permalink Mark Unread

"This court is now in session, in the matter of In re Young. All advocates have been briefed on the decedent's lifetime of thoughts and actions and their context."

Ey turns to the new arrival. "Do you know where you are?"

Permalink Mark Unread

He looks around. "Sorry, no idea. I was recently in my lab in Lady Rasdovain's estate when it caught fire, and I presumably died there. Is this Hell? Someone mentioned Hell."

Permalink Mark Unread

The devil looks mildly amused.

Permalink Mark Unread

"You are in the Boneyard, the domain of Pharasma, where dead souls, also known as petitioners, such as yourself are tried and sorted. Each soul is entitled to a trial, where it is determined what afterlife corresponds to their actions and choices while living. You are permitted to speak at your trial. Do you perceive us as speaking in a language you understand, using words that you are familiar with, at a speaking speed you can follow?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"I perceive you as speaking English with Avistani loanwords. I wasn't aware of the existence of multiple afterlives. Who or what is Pharasma?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"We'll get to that. 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?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yes." He spent rather a lot of time trying to do that, actually.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Do you understand that the purpose of this court is to determine your alignment and which afterlife you are assigned to?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"I don't understand what is meant by alignment in this context or what afterlives there are, but I did understand your previous statement that this court is for determining which afterlife my actions and choices are associated with."

Permalink Mark Unread

Well, he's doing better than a lot of petitioners. Pretty much entirely due to the eternal influx of babies, but still.

"Acknowledged. We will now explain alignments and afterlives. Alignment is a quality of the soul. It consists of moral and systemic alignment, two axes in which one may be neutral or at either extreme. Systemic alignment is the Law-Chaos axis. Law is associated with honor, obedience, and rigidity, while Chaos is associated with freedom, flexibility, and impulsivity. Moral alignment is the Good-Evil axis. Good is associated with altruism, while Evil is associated with causing harm to others. For each possible value pair, there exists an afterlife, all of which have representatives here today who can explain them. Devil, the petitioner's auto-assessment was for Lawful Evil, so you go first. If your statement does not cover the most common objections to Hell, I will do so for you."

Permalink Mark Unread

Wait, why is the auto-assessment for him Lawful Evil? He doesn't remember causing much harm to others.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Thank you, your honor. Hell is essentially unified under the rule of Asmodeus, god of contracts, pride, slavery, and tyranny. The most common objection to Hell is that we torture people. However, there are some goals that can't be fulfilled any other way" such as Asmodeus's desire to torture people "and some people for whom that isn't such a cost." And a bit of perversity doesn't mean it would be tolerable for you, but you don't need to know that. "Furthermore, while those who currently enter Hell will have time to find their proper place there, Hell anticipates taking over other afterlife planes, and such a change of governance and focus is naturally opposed by their current representatives and those who went to those intentionally."

Permalink Mark Unread

The judge gestures for the Axis representative to speak, and a winged plastic sphere with arms and a lens puts down eir paperwork and becomes more visible.

Permalink Mark Unread

At which point the imp, who has not been particularly trained in the art of detailed perception of the textures of small objects in shadow at a distance from himself, blinks. "Objection, your honor. I understand that this court system is very busy, but I have no records of us having established that the petitioner will definitely not be resurrected."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Your honor, Axis makes no claim that the petitioner will definitely not be resurrected. Rather, if my Infernal counterpart is concerned about my composition, the record will show that Young has personally interacted with injection-molded plastic goods on many occasions."

Permalink Mark Unread

"That's persuasive. You may resume explaining Axis."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Thank you, your honor. Axis is the Lawful Neutral afterlife plane. While many gods are present in Axis who are not subordinate to each other, Abadar, god of cities, law, trade, and wealth, operates the largest region in Axis, as well as the one most welcoming to typical new arrivals. For people who lived lives of alternating work and leisure in urban environments, such as yourself, Axis essentially offers the-same-but-better: more harmony, more variety of legal systems that all contain areas that are safe and prosperous, more wealth, et cetera. Axis is typically criticized for encouraging stagnancy – petitioners typically remain quite similar to themselves in life or choose to be modified into axiomites who are subsequently unlikely to experience significant personal change – and for providing few opportunities to pursue outside-Axis goals aside from the promotion of impartial Law. Additionally, Axis has fewer wilderness-like environments than any other populated Outer Plane."

Permalink Mark Unread

With some reluctance, the judge indicates that the daemon may speak.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Abaddon is designated as the Neutral Evil afterlife plane. It's not torture-oriented, and it's dark and quiet and offers the only true rest. Nirvana, which sees itself as fighting for the interests of petitioners, will typically lobby that definitely-evil petitioners be found Neutral Evil, which they consider more merciful. We have a lot of immortality researchers, you'd fit right in. The most common criticism of Abaddon is that we eat souls, but that seems unlikely to happen in your case."

Permalink Mark Unread

"And I will summarize the Boneyard, the Neutral afterlife. The Boneyard is Pharasma's domain. It offers the opportunity to develop other alignments and move beyond it, or become a psychopomp like myself in Pharasma's service, judging souls, fighting undead, guarding souls as they arrive here, et cetera. The most serious issue with the Boneyard is that we get a constant massive influx of babies, who typically grow up with inadequate attention. If you are found True Neutral, you will be strongly encouraged towards a childcare-related path, regardless of whether you wish to become a psychopomp or develop a non-neutral alignment."

"Heaven may now speak."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Thank you, your honor. Heaven is the Lawful Good afterlife. We encourage petitioners to train as archons or angels so that they can contribute to our efforts against Evil, primarily in the form of large atrocity-oriented organizations such as Hell. We're the most militarized of the Good planes due to our higher levels of organization. We're most commonly criticized for not encouraging rest from the burdens of mortality the way that Axis and Nirvana do. This is fair, but we do have some opportunities for rest, and some limited programs for migration to and from Axis and Nirvana which we are looking to expand. It is our sincere belief that, if you had as much time as you wished to study reliable sources regarding the afterlives, you would most likely prefer to be in one of the Good afterlives."

Permalink Mark Unread

The nosoi gestures for the Abyss representative to speak.

Permalink Mark Unread

The Abyss representative continues snoring.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Demon representative, explain the Abyss."

Permalink Mark Unread

This is a really nice place to rest. Sometimes people are talking, but that's not a problem.

Permalink Mark Unread

The nosoi looks irritated, picks up a gavel which a normal bird of its size wouldn't be able to handle, and strikes it.

"Demon representative, pay attention! If you do not complete your duty to explain the Abyss, you will be returned there in contempt of court."

Permalink Mark Unread

What? …oh, the judge is threatening to send him back, ugh. "Repeat yourself? I need a moment."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I shouldn't have to repeat myself because representatives should not be sleeping during hearings, at least not in a way that interferes with their ability to do their jobs. That said: You are to explain the nature of the Abyss. If you do not cover the most common objections to it, I will do so for you."

Permalink Mark Unread

"The Abyss is, uh, chaotic evil?"

The judge still looks like ey expects more explanation.

"Demons, uh, fight each other and stuff? Things are messy and strong demons are in charge."

There, is that good enough?

Permalink Mark Unread

Not really, but the Abyss's incompetence is their responsibility, not Pharasma's.

"The Abyss is commonly objected to on the basis of petitioners entering it typically being tortured or killed, as well as its disorder. Protean, you're next."

Permalink Mark Unread

Incomprehensible crackling that is somehow suggestive of freedom!

Permalink Mark Unread

"Protean, you are to use the courtroom translation infrastructure appropriately or be sent home in contempt of court."

Permalink Mark Unread

Crackling sigh. "Fiiiine, we can go with the boring option. The Maelstrom, which Pharasma calls the chaotic neutral afterlife, is a region of infinite possibility, which even the newest petitioners have the opportunity to play with. It's difficult to get bored there, you have to work really hard on it. There's no better place to experiment, most planes will want you to follow other people's instructions or demonstrate safety. We'll just make things more interesting, most of the time. People who don't like us usually complain because they for some reason think being at least sort of the same person forever is important."

Permalink Mark Unread

"To clarify the protean's statement, Maelstrom petitioners typically in the long term have little to no continuity of identity with their states on arrival to the Maelstrom. Nirvana, you're next."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Thank you, your honor. Nirvana is the Neutral Good afterlife. We send representatives to every petitioner's trial, because of our beliefs that every soul contains a spark of Goodness that ought to be encouraged to develop, and every soul deserves a decent afterlife. We attempt to provide petitioners we do receive with an optimal recovery from the burdens of mortal life, which tends to create more knowledge of oneself and one's values, and eventually leave petitioners better prepared to pursue those values without being damaged by the pursuit. Because of our goals being so trial-oriented, we train a lot of lawyers. We're commonly criticized for our practice of transforming petitioners into animals associated with what areas of recovery they should focus on, and for our disinterest in facilitating petitioners' desires to take on duties they aren't ready for."

Permalink Mark Unread

And, finally, the judge indicates that the Elysium representative, several colorful whirling paper-appearing rings with crayon-looking eyes, may speak.

"Elysium is the Chaotic Good afterlife. It's an expansive wilderness where you can do what you want if you don't hurt other people, unless they're okay with it. There are cities of varying levels of temporaryness. It's easy to find public things and easy to not be found if you don't want to. We're often criticized for the lack of permanent settlements with reliable infrastructure and services beyond the necessities which people are personally motivated to provide, but it's possible to figure out ways to get most things you want without that. To be clear, when I say 'you can do what you want' that's a broad statement. You can learn how to act as a lawyer while sleeping, store spare time and use it later, take your friends volcano-surfing safely, et cetera."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Petitioner, do you now feel that you have some understanding of the nature of aligment and the afterlives?"

Permalink Mark Unread

He pauses to consider the question. "There was something … weird … about some of those explanations. I'm not sure if I can really explain the intuition, which annoys me. I think I have some understanding now, but I still don't understand why I was auto-assessed as Evil."

Permalink Mark Unread

"We will now be hearing opening statements from the representatives present on why the petitioner belongs in their associated afterlife. Except for myself: I am present as a judge, not an advocate. We'll continue with the same order we had during summaries unless anyone has a convincing argument as to why this would produce an unfair trial."

Permalink Mark Unread

Nah, nobody here is really seeing an argument they want to make there.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Thank you, your honor. First off, I don't think there's any serious argument to be made for a non-Lawful systemic alignment. I certainly don't get the sense that any of the Chaotic parties present are taking this trial all that seriously, they seem to be here to sleep or spectate on the first usage of the policy update we've been presented with. The petitioner was for the full duration of his life, both outside and within this court's jurisdiction, scrupulously honest including to the detriment of others, and only broke the law in cases where political officials stated that having the law be scrupulously followed was not important to the operation of their polity and they didn't plan to prosecute cases of people from favored demographics violating it in ways that didn't produce outrage."

"Secondly, the petitioner is clearly morally Evil. For the full duration of the time in our jurisdiction, the petitioner acted to improve the capabilities of Cheliax, an Evil country–"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Objection! Your honor, polities do not under typical circumstances possess alignments, and Cheliax does not meet the criteria established in In re Formian Worker 976."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Objection sustained. Devil, please rephrase and continue your argument."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I apologize for my overly colloquial language, your honor. For the full duration of his presence within this court's jurisdiction, the petitioner acted to improve the capabilities of Cheliax, a country governed by Evil leadership, which encourages Chelish citizens to develop an Evil alignment and pursues goals typically considered Evil on the international stage as well. He did so in the service of Mireia Rasdovain, an Evil person who openly committed seriously Evil acts. In terms of myriad daily actions, he benefited from slave labor, including giving orders to slaves, causing them to accumulate painful injuries in his service, and increased risk of diseases that they would not have been cured of if they'd contracted them. Additionally, one of the evils of undeath is the production of entities that contain souls within their dead bodies but do not allow those souls to operate those bodies, which applies to one of the main branches of research into the manipulation of life and death that this petitioner pursued."

Permalink Mark Unread

Leaving aside the obvious problems with these arguments, namely the fact that the petitioner operated for his entire time in Cheliax under what was analogous to a permanent Suggestion effect, the issue with trapping souls in their own bodies without control of those bodies is the subjective experiences of those souls and concerns about depriving them of afterlives, neither of which apply here. Ey's not supposed to make arguments like that right now, though, so she doesn't.

Permalink Mark Unread

He asked, and Lady Rasdovain told him that Cheliax was unusually prone to pursuing humanitarian goals, and the workers were getting hazard pay! He conducted due diligence! (Why doesn't that feel as persuasive as it did for the past few years? It's like the ground is falling out from under him.)

He still doesn't see how cryonics causes harm to others, though.

Permalink Mark Unread

And the Arbiter speaks.

"Your honor, while many of the arguments Hell makes regarding systemic alignment are correct, the same cannot be said of the arguments regarding moral alignment. As we can infer from the guidelines regarding Atonement, actions committed 'unwittingly or under some form of compulsion' are considered a classic failure of alignment auto-detection to represent a soul's actual alignment. All of the petitioner's behavior in Cheliax occurred under a Gullibility-like effect, causing him to be unaware of the nature of Cheliax despite the extensive evidence he was presented with. Given this, we have to consider the petitioner's beliefs, regardless of whether those beliefs are justified. He believed the slaves were paid employees receiving hazard pay and access to healing spells adequate for cancer et cetera. He believed that Mireia Rasdovain had excuses for the evil acts she visibly committed, such as them being illusory, consensual, et cetera."

"Furthermore, the actual impact of the petitioner's efforts is low, because Mireia Rasdovain wanted to keep her advantages to herself, and kept all extant instances of and notes on the petitioner's work in a hidden area of her estate, which was destroyed when Sergi Khollarix had her estate burnt. Khollarix also killed many of Rasdovain's slaves, giving them no opportunity to fall ill from their work under the petitioner. Given the petitioner's consistent Lawful behavior, and Good goals warped to Evil ends with no significant lasting impact in either direction, we believe the petitioner to be Lawful Neutral."

"Finally, the petitioner's research into brain preservation does not constitute research into undeath. In his home context, it was intended to prevent informational death, a state analogous to soul destruction. It is typically held that preventing soul destruction is Good. In the present context, he was attempting to reconstruct a medical process he was familiar with and acting under a vaguely understood concern that not all souls made it to afterlives. In either case, it does not produce an active creature of any form, much less one powered by Negative Energy, much less one which traps conscious souls in body they cannot operate."

Permalink Mark Unread

In some ways, that speech explains his confusion. In other ways, that speech just makes everything more confusing. This is plausibly the most important event of his existence that he still has any chance to influence, and he has absolutely no idea where to start.

Permalink Mark Unread

"As Axis mentions, the petitioner spent his life under a Gullibility-like effect. However, as this effect prevented him from lying, his honesty and other Lawful behavior cannot be reasonably construed to be actions he can be held responsible for. To really understand the petitioner, we'd have to see records of what actions he would take under some circumstances where he wasn't under such an effect. Luckily, Abaddon has such records, and is prepared to share them with the court."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Explain. Including why those records were not submitted in advance."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I'm sorry, your honor, Abaddon has not been kept up to date with court policy for ages, and communications from Abaddon tend to get no response or negative responses. Given this, I don't see how we were supposed to know to submit these documents in advance."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Watch your tone. Do you have copies of the records now for the representatives present to review?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"No, no such requirement was mentioned."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Hand over your records for copying. We will bill you for last-minute copying expenses."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I don't trust you with the only copy I brought."

Permalink Mark Unread

"The guards can escort you to a copying facility if you're willing to step away from the trial while it's happening and cede your opening statement order slot to Heaven."

Permalink Mark Unread

"That's unfair."

Permalink Mark Unread

"What's unfair is that Abaddon tried to circumvent the trial process entirely, not through recognized channels like Malediction, but through directly grabbing this petitioner from the River of Souls. You're lucky to be here at all. Don't push it."

Permalink Mark Unread

"There's no evidence of that."

Permalink Mark Unread

"We can discuss that matter later. Do you wish me to send your report to be copied, do you wish to leave the court to observe the report as it is copied, or do you wish to not use it in your arguments?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Fine. Take the report to be copied. If it is altered, I will know."

Permalink Mark Unread

Security can coordinate the judge getting Abaddon's report.

Permalink Mark Unread

And the judge will write on a bright pink notecard, pin it to the report, and place it in the outbox.

Permalink Mark Unread

"May I now proceed with my argument, including with reference to the contents of the report?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Daemon representative, you may proceed."

Permalink Mark Unread

"It is sometimes the case that multiple versions of the same soul exist, sometimes with varying implementation details. Abaddon occasionally receives messages from extrauniversal parties, including one from a region with someone who is the same person as the petitioner. This person has repeatedly defied local law regarding death and soul manipulation, repeatedly attempted to facilitate unrepentantly Evil people including daemon cultists being placed in Heaven, killed thousands of people without repenting of it, et cetera. Abaddon expects that questioning the petitioner will show that they would, under comparable circumstances, commit the same Chaotic and Evil acts, suggesting that the petitioner has a Neutral Evil alignment, when accounting for the broader Lawful tendencies Hell mentioned."

Permalink Mark Unread

Isn't that not the sort of stuff that's supposed to be brought up at sentencing hearings? "This person who's sort of similar to the defendant did stuff", really? It's hard for him to picture himself killing thousands of people.

Permalink Mark Unread

He has the right to talk, apparently, and things here seem somewhat disorganized. He'll try using it. "Your honor, is this type of evidence permissible in this court?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"We will not take documents from untrusted sources, as relayed by untrustworthy relays such as Abaddon, as authoritative. However, representatives may ask you questions that they believe will be informative for this case, and are permitted to generate questions based on many sorts of material."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Thank you, your honor. Would it be possible for me to review a guide to trial proceedings?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"No, as it would not be compatible with the Boneyard's busy schedule. Archon, you're next."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Thank you, your honor. I will note for the record that Heaven still contends that not including a right to a full explanation of the court system in the Fair Trial Act was a mistake. If the trial system is too complicated to be quickly explained to petitioners, then the solution ought to be to make the courts less overworked or simplify the trial system such that it can be quickly explained to petitioners."

"Moving on: We don't agree with Hell's argument that the petitioner's pre-Golarion life is outside of this court's jurisdiction. Elysium vs. Ellostar, 2334, applies in cases where we have very limited information beyond that directly coded in the soul about events. This doesn't hold here – this court is aware of Earth, and the petitioner is from an extremely Earthlike planet. Furthermore, no other system has jurisdiction over the petitioner's pre-Golarion life. Axis vs Helen, -1820, suggests that one of the constraints on jurisdiction is our fact-finding capability, but in the case of the petitioner's pre-Golarion planet of residence, fact-finding is rather cheap, as the planet cannot publish false or misleading information and has the technological capacity to publish massive amounts of information every second, some of which is even transmitted away from the planet in all directions. Prior to arrival on Golarion, the petitioner lived a straightforwardly Lawful Good life of effectively pursuing altruistic goals in an organized manner."

"However, even in the case where you do not accept this argument regarding jurisdiction, we still contend that the petitioner is Lawful Good. Regarding systemic alignment, our understanding is that the petitioner believed in the benefits of Law, repeatedly expressed dismay about signs that he was in a less Lawful environment than his home, and would endorse his Lawful actions, even if many of them occurred due to an enchantment-like effect. Furthermore, regarding moral alignment: He pursued diamond synthesis with the understanding that diamonds produced would be used to resurrect people, even while acting under the understanding that he would not profit from this in a manner proportionate to the value created, because he valued people having more access to life. He did significant research into arcane healing despite having personal access to divine healing. He had higher expectations for adequate treatment of his assistants than the typical person would and attempted to have those expectations fulfilled. He was used to an environment in which it was normal to spend less of a week working than he spent his weeks in Cheliax, not because of threats but because he felt that the lack of various technologies on Golarion was an urgent moral crisis that needed resolving as quickly as possible. Despite a personal appreciation for large explosions, he repeatedly steered his research into replicating a technology with dual usage for energy production and large explosions away from directions that he deemed likely to facilitate large explosions, due to his concerns about negative societal impacts."

Permalink Mark Unread

The nosoi notices that the dretch is sleeping, again, and escalates straight to striking the gavel and yelling.

"Attention, demon representative! Explain why the petitioner is Chaotic Evil."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Uh. Um, what Hell says about moral alignment and whatever the Maelstrom says about systemic alignment."

Permalink Mark Unread

"The Maelstrom hasn't spoken yet."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Getting Abaddon to show up here's gotta be chaotic, it changes things. That's my statement, okay?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Pharasma vs Calistria, the Lawful afterlives having a better lawyer training system than the chaotic ones does not make the trial system unfair. I will accept your argument. Maelstrom, you're next."

What's really disappointing about this behavior is that this is actually above-average for an Abyss representative.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Despite the petitioner's efforts, he did in fact make some advances in the field of interesting explosions exploiting locally-underexploited physics. Furthermore, he did so while thinking that large locally-underexploited-physics explosions were really, really cool. I don't have much to say about moral alignment, there were some good intentions and some good results and some evil results and it's plausible that it washes out to Neutral."

Permalink Mark Unread

At the nosoi's gesture, the agathion speaks. "Thank you, your honor. Nirvana mostly concurs with Heaven's claims. The case for Good is very strong, while the case for a non-Lawful systemic alignment appears weaker. The main argument that hasn't been advanced there is that the petitioner's Law was, yes, established in an environment where they were essentially enchanted in a way that promoted Lawful actions. That environment did not coercively promote Good actions, but the petitioner pursued Good anyway, making their Good moral alignment more a result of their choices and values than a Lawful systemic alignment. Furthermore, suppose that Abaddon does somehow have a point regarding counterfactuals. If so, Nirvana holds that enabling unrepentant committers of Evil acts to access a Good afterlife is, so long as the Good afterlife is prepared to accept them, a Good action, and that it's possible to defy laws re death and soul manipulation in a Chaotic Good manner."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I concur with Heaven and Nirvana regarding moral alignment. I'm personally under the impression that the petitioner would be able to acculturate well to any of the Good afterlives, suggesting that even if they're only borderline Chaotic on arrival, they might well become more firmly Chaotic later."

Ey pauses momentarily when the judge starts passing around copies of Abaddon's report, but once the judge doesn't call for silence, ey continues.

"I don't think we have adequate information to determine systemic alignment. I think we need to question the petitioner after we resolve the question of moral alignment. The protean has a point regarding chaos, but I'm not confident in it."

Permalink Mark Unread

"That concludes opening statements. As seven of the representatives have noticed, we now have copies of Abaddon's report alleging to be regarding a second instance of Griffith. Does anyone object to a brief pause to review this?"

"Alright. We're taking a brief pause to review this."

Permalink Mark Unread

The document claims to be from 'Suaal', wherever that is, and contains descriptions of several incidents involving a 'Griffith of Erlonn', whoever that is.

The first is a report on 'Erloria' leshies repairing each other's souls and reincarnating each other, a practice which Griffith of Erlonn is alleged to have participated in. For some reason, death from senscence there is associated with accumulated soul damage instead of Pharasma's decree that a soul ought to return? At any rate, this practice allegedly violated local law.

Griffith of Erlonn and eir adventuring party was also allegedly involved in the destruction of several psychopomps. They also made a lot of anti-psychopomp statements.

Griffith of Erlonn and adventuring party plotted – with conspirators including a demon lord! – to neutralize their local Lamashtu. During this planning process, they had the capacity to research the effects of killing a god on that god's realm and servants, and chose not to do so, displaying indifference to those their actions would affect. Sure enough, when they neutralized Lamashtu, this caused the destruction of all of Lamashtu's specialized servitor demons, a numerous group. This was brought to Griffith of Erlonn's attention through dreams ey believed were accurate, and this did not cause em to regret eir actions.

There's also some records of transferring prisoners to Heaven – a dragon, a medusa, some others. Griffith of Erlonn checked in with Heaven regarding the status of these prisoners, and Heaven confirmed that they had still not repented.

Permalink Mark Unread

"So, this is an interesting set of claims, but even if we were here to judge a person who committed the actions described here, which we aren't, I don't think it'd be an open-and-shut case for Neutral Evil."

Permalink Mark Unread

Griffith looks focused. "Your honor, I have never killed anyone, and the idea of killing a person is deeply abhorrent to me. Given … this … I think that … the idea that I am the same person as someone who unrepentantly killed thousands of people … is mistaken."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Your honor, the petitioner seems to be missing a concept that's key to conceptualizing his actions, even in the absence of the effect he was under. May I explain it?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Quickly."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Thank you, your honor. Griffith, in the absence of magical effects it is typically possible for people to make inaccurate statements intentionally. For instance, if this court did not have a Zone of Truth effect, I could have claimed to be a crocodile. This behavior is how Mireia Rasdovain got you to work for her, and may be involved in Abaddon's report."

Permalink Mark Unread

Permalink Mark Unread

"Thank you, Nirvana representative. That does contextualize things. I wish I'd figured it out earlier."

Permalink Mark Unread

"That's very reasonable, but it's not your fault that you didn't."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I don't think we can take this as a given. If we look at In re Vicky Austin, it was found that her display of willpower against a compulsion to take Evil actions she was unprepared to resist was Good, which implies that the absence of such displays over an extended period must therefore be Evil. Many enchantments break or become more brittle when forcing a subject to take actions 'against its nature', and thus failure to resist a novel enchantment-like effect is evidence that actions taken under that effect were not against the petitioner's nature."

Permalink Mark Unread

"While that's evidence from a mathematical perspective, it's not very significant. Compulsion resistance can show actions to be against someone's nature, but is not the only way to do so. We have a clear reference for the effect the petitioner was under: Gullibility, which does not become easier to resist when pushing someone to act against their nature, merely when presenting claims whose belief would be against their nature, and so you would need to establish a claim where believing it is itself an evil act, regardless of evidence."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Such claims do exist. For instance, In re Quixote found that, while the petitioner's actions in the context of his belief that silver dragons were soulless puppets of Hshurha were comparable in many ways to the way Good adventurers often behave towards mindless creatures, his actions were nevertheless Evil, which suggests that his belief was Evil."

Permalink Mark Unread

"In re Quixote introduces a test which we could go through. However, I haven't seen evidence that the petitioner actually has beliefs which are even plausibly immoral to hold, so this seems like a digression."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Unfortunately, that seems plausible. Hell has been having some very pointed conversations with Mireia Rasdovain."

Permalink Mark Unread

(Rasdovain was either soul-sold or Maledicted. Nirvana had assembled the bare outlines of a case based on her effectively withholding valuable resources from Cheliax. When petitioners whose best case for non-LE is in that genre go to Hell anyway, as happens unfortunately often, things tend to go particularly badly for them. Also, this remark is probably going over Griffith's head, and now is not the time to explain it, Griffith is doing acceptable work here and shouldn't be distracted.)

Permalink Mark Unread

"Returning to the matter at hand: One of the questions in this trial seems to be whether the petitioner's Lawful actions in life count towards his systemic alignment. If, while no longer under the effects he was under in life, he nonetheless endorses his Lawful actions, this is very simple to resolve, so I'd like to check this now."

Ey turns to the petitioner. "While alive, when you did not attempt to mislead others, it was because you could not do otherwise, and when you followed laws, a significant factor was your belief that you would almost certainly be caught for violating them due to inability to conceal such violations. How do you feel about those actions now?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"In terms of my understanding of Law and Chaos, I'm satisfied with the actions I took while on Earth. Some of the laws in the Fractious States, where I lived, weren't ones I agreed with, but I think adhering to them was reasonable for me and contributed to a healthy society, and I think making false statements to people who don't have the capacity to evaluate those statements is very bad."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I am rather displeased by my actions in Cheliax. I'm not sure what scenarios to evaluate here. I think refusing to tell them anything would have been better by my values. I think giving them false information to waste their time would have been good by my values if I could have managed genuinely unhelpful false information which I probably couldn't have. It'd be nice if I'd fled the country to somewhere it wouldn't be harmful to contribute to, but I don't know if I would have been capable of it even fully informed of everything. It's plausible that L-, uh, Mireia Rasdovain would have forced me to produce useful information if I hadn't volunteered it and prevented me from running off, in which case the right thing to do plausibly would have been committing suicide before she figured things out. If Cheliax had abolitionists I could have joined I would have wanted to do that."

"Uh, for clarity, it's my understanding that violating the laws of slave states that pursue evil goals on the international stage is what plenty of people from my world think is the right thing to do and that it's not an, er, significant norms violation, that the defiance of some portion of right-thinking people is basically something you, uh, ought to anticipate when you decide to have widespread slavery or such.

"Does that clarify matters for you?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Not very Lawful."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Many Lawful people have circumstances under which they would violate the laws of foreign states they oppose. Furthermore, the jurisdiction argument hasn't been resolved yet."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Petitioner, your statement is somewhat clarifying."

"We will now hear the jurisdiction argument. Hell, why aren't the petitioner's actions prior to arrival in Golarion within this court's jurisdiction?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Your honor, while this court is aware of Earth, the Earth we are aware of differs drastically from the planet the petitioner is from. The petitioner's planet has more advanced technology than the Earth we are familiar with, and lacks religion, R'lyeh, literally any native magic users, that deranged stunt a demigod pulled, et cetera. The idea that our information on Earth prepares us to judge actions taken in the petitioner's region is, frankly, absurd. Furthermore, while Heaven brings up the petitioner's home planet's radio broadcasts, those are tangential, as this court appears unlikely to place a radio satellite for gathering background regarding a single petitioner."

Permalink Mark Unread

"One of the typical reasons we typically can't rely almost entirely on information directly coded in the soul about events to issue judgements is that mortals will very frequently self-delude including on an instinctive level. Examination of the effect on this petitioner produced significant evidence that he was not capable of this."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Do you have a cite for that being a typical reason, or are you speculating?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"I'm speculating as to the thoughts of a reasonable psychopomp, due to my interactions with many such psychopomps and their writings."

Permalink Mark Unread

('Reasonable psychopomp'. Suuuuure. Pharasmin 'neutrality' is fundamentally unreasonable.)

Permalink Mark Unread

"Does anyone have any further arguments regarding jurisdiction?"

Nobody does.

"I'm ruling that the petitioner's time on his planet of origin is not within this court's jurisdiction. We will now move on to other arguments."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Given this ruling, and the petitioner's commentary on what actions he would prefer to have taken in Cheliax, I think the petitioner is systemically Neutral."

Permalink Mark Unread

"You're probably going to send him to the Boneyard because he's never done anything by his free will here and his memories suggest he took care of his siblings, but I do think in a Chelish context if the petitioner had been agentic he'd have aimed for Chaotic Good. And then probably gotten Maledicted, but, well, if ifs and ands were eyes and hands, you all would be a lot less boring."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I have seen no serious evidence against my opening argument regarding the petitioner's moral alignment. If the petitioner's life prior to Golarion is outside this court's jurisdiction, his moral behavior consists essentially entirely of Good goals warped to what would have been Evil ends which in fact failed to materialize. The lack of impact is classically Neutral, as is the mixture of Good and Evil, and various discounting applied to compelled action makes it in this context similar to incapability of action, which is also classically Neutral. Many of my fellows have brought up counterfactuals, but this court rules not on counterfactual petitioners but rather those who are present. Given this, while the petitioner may be Lawful at heart and belong more in Axis than in the Boneyard, the appropriate ruling on this petitioner's alignment as determined from his life in Golarion seems likely to be True Neutral."

Permalink Mark Unread

(Pff, Axis is agreeing with em. That's hilarious. Ey grows some burning snowflake flowers about it.)

Permalink Mark Unread

"This mischaracterizes the petitioner. We need to look at In re Vona here. Using Evil means to pursue Evil goals is Evil. Having your scheme hijacked to serve a different form of Evil is not a mitigating factor, nor is that goal eventually failing for reasons unrelated to you."

Permalink Mark Unread

The angel's paper rings tighten inward, almost developing pleats, and her eyes narrow, but she doesn't speak.

Permalink Mark Unread

"In the case of Vona, the petitioner used Evil means, namely undeath and killing numerous noncombatants, to pursue the Evil goal of using a powerful artifact for mass undeath. This resulted in an Evil dragon temporarily acquiring the artifact for his own purposes before being imprisoned. This case is similar. The petitioner's evil means include the use of slave labor, knowingly infecting others with diseases, and other acts. The disease infection case is particularly notable because, while many of my counterparts may argue that the petitioner's mindstate was not conducive to culpability in the case of slave labor, the petitioner anticipated that his work would lead to more people deliberately infecting nonconsenting parties with diseases than would otherwise occur. As for evil goals, we see some consideration of mass undeath, some desire to increase the rate of petitioners arriving in Hell, some interest in making abortion more appealing as a procedure, other more minor focuses."

And the imp slightly raises an eyebrow at the caviidal. "And I don't think we have serious disagreements over whether Rasdovain's aims here were Evil, do we?"

Permalink Mark Unread

First off, just because Pharasma puts up with these sorts of veiled threats in her courts doesn't mean they merit respect.

Secondly … on the non-threat level, the imp is right. Arguing about Rasdovain here is just not a good use of the court's patience. No doubt this will earn more smirks from the imp about cowardice or such, but it's still true.

Thirdly, if Hell is seriously making arguments like "the petitioner's attempts to develop a smallpox vaccination program are Evil", that's actually very promising, because that's a stretch which Hell, if they did their research, knows is a stretch. (It's convenient for lookups when a petitioner is trying to emulate specific known people who've already been tried, or in this case weird foreign versions of them.)

"Your honor, please see In re Jenner. It's not a standard reference, but we've brought copies. To summarize, popularizing an effective smallpox prevention method is Good, even if it predictably causes some people to coercively expose others to disease."

A pause, for copy distribution.

Permalink Mark Unread

At the nosoi's nod, the caviidal continues. "As we've discussed, the petitioner was unaware of his use of slave labor, as well as the nature of Hell. His interests in abortion were formed without knowing a fetus's age of ensoulment, and have other very strongly mitigating factors which I can go into if necessary."

"Additionally, describing cryopreservation as undeath is misleading. Nonmagical brain preservation, a process which essentially consists in this context of poisoning and freezing a body, does not meet any standard criteria for undeath. It does not prevent the soul from moving to its destination. It does not use negative energy. It does not create a creature animated by spiritual or supernatural forces. It does not prevent the use of a Raise Dead or Reincarnate effect. It does not depend on Urgathoa's infrastructure damage. There is, so far as I can tell, no reasonable definition of 'undeath' that applies to cryopreservation."

"As for the petitioner's intentions regarding cryopreservation, they can be modeled as a desire to create a low-maintenance version of Gentle Repose, or to petrify consenting people who feared Abaddon, neither of which are Evil."

Permalink Mark Unread

"In re Jenner was wrongly decided. Generally this court acts as though spreading disease to gain some measure of protection from it is Evil."

Permalink Mark Unread

And of course Abaddon didn't bring cites. "I believe the Abaddon representative is referring to cases such as In re Zenderholm."

Permalink Mark Unread

"In re Zenderholm doesn't generalize to this case. Zenderholm offered service to Urgathoa, whose causes include disease, in the hopes of being personally spared from harm. A reasonable person in Zenderholm's position would expect that this would lead to more net harm. However, Jenner and the present petitioner both reasonably expected their actions to lead to less net harm, and history has shown Jenner to be correct, suggesting that the petitioner would have also been correct had he been in the political climate he believed himself to be in and been able to proceed with his plans."

Permalink Mark Unread

There is indeed a reason why he didn't make that argument himself, yes. But if Abaddon wants to continue betting that Good is emulating the dretch's attentiveness, he'll keep providing cites, it's not the same loss of reputation.