"So, the petitioner immediately regretted her action once it was complete and made a plan to avoid repeating it, which she successfully adhered to without further slips. If we look at cases like In re Smith, that's actually a lot better than many Lawful petitioners do."

"Your argument is that she regretted being alone with a man so much that... she became a prostitute nine months later? That she regretted transgressing against her society's norms so much that... she impersonated a cleric in order to kidnap a child?"

"My argument is that in the absence of risk to the integrity of her family, which Erastil has firmly established is a Lawful concern, the petitioner strongly values adherence to her society's norms. It's extremely common for Lawful petitioners to prioritize some Lawful concerns over others. In cases like In re Hainard, for instance, we see that petitioners can maintain a Lawful alignment while supporting interference with international trade."

"Hainard, unlike this petitioner, did things his country liked."

"Yes, that's a Law-oriented factor he prioritized over the unLawfulness of supporting piracy."

"Did this petitioner even have a personal code of conduct?"

"She did not, but that's irrelevant to my argument."

"Please elaborate."

"Your honor, I'm not arguing that every single act the petitioner committed was fully Lawful. I'm arguing that she broadly speaking led a Lawful life, even given indiscretions."

"Systemic and moral alignment are not equivalent! I don't think I need to cite precedent that, while saving many lives can make up for causing a death, keeping to a surrender many times cannot make up for perfidy."

"That's true, but the petitioner did not commit perfidy. Perfidy involves going back on one's word, and typically when one gives one's word one understands what it means."

"Osirion did not encourage the petitioner to develop the understanding that adherence to their law might require her to accept her children being taken from her in her sleep and placed in an orphanage. If Osirion had encouraged the petitioner to develop that understanding, she might have predicted that she'd be tempted to illegal actions if it came up, and taken preemptive action to avoid this."

"As it stands, the petitioner was instead presented with an unexpected variety of crisis in which time was plausibly of the essence. Handling scenarios like this ungracefully is the exact sort of incident that many mortals are prone to, which is why we look at broad life patterns."

"I hope you're not suggesting that anything many mortals are prone to can't be unLawful."

"I'm suggesting that we hold this mortal to the standards we typically hold mortals to when assessing their alignment, not the standards we typically hold paladins to when assessing their adherence to their duties."

"Most mortal choices, this mortal included, are insignificant. Maybe if she'd lived another forty years, she'd have lots and lots of little Good and tiny Lawful acts to put on the scales. But she didn't. The constants of her life were her completely neutral music hobby and indifferently performed household duties. The highlights of her life were illicit sex, petty theft, absence without leave, impersonation of the office of a priest, smalltime terrorism, kidnapping, and never at any point reconciling herself to any of the authorities she'd flouted."

"Music is not completely neutral. The creation of beauty is Good, especially when done for its own sake or for the sake of others without recompense: see for example In re Koshiba. Performing one's duties is also not completely Neutral, see for example In re Conseil. Doing what one believes to be the correct thing despite reluctance does not mitigate the alignment effect of those actions."

"As for your claim about major acts: Seeking out her child who was taken from her in her sleep is not by any moral definition kidnapping. 'Terrorism' is a very bold summary of leaving some paint around. The petitioner did not falsely advise people, take confessions, access church coffers, or so forth while impersonating a priest, which means she did substantially less harm than the typical reference case. And she did attempt to reconcile herself to Abadar through devout prayer."

"The paint was left around specifically in order to provoke an organizational startle reaction she could take advantage of. Sending in threats to Cloudkill a building isn't directly harmful either, assuming there's no call to follow through, but it's still terrorism."

"The petitioner was not trying to intimidate the Church of Abadar into doing what she wanted, but merely to momentarily startle them."

It's good that the capybara can read her history or whatever because Rabiah is increasingly unclear on her own motives after hearing them argued about like this.

"I agree with the Nirvana representative's recent claims."

"I don't think those claims go as far as you'd like. Sure, you can say that what she did was not morally kidnapping, whatever. It's still legally kidnapping, and we're discussing her Law at least as much as her Good! And I, personally, think it's likely that if someone had tried to confess to her while she was playing priest, she wouldn't have broken her cover. Nobody did, but that's luck, not virtue."

"It's not luck. The church of Abadar, especially in areas like urban Osirion, has procedures around confessions and makes its congregation aware of those procedures. Those procedures do not involve directing people to priests on-duty in childcare areas, which the petitioner knew when pretending to be a priest on-duty in a childcare area."

"And if the church had been worse-resourced or less orderly?"

"Then they wouldn't be accepting responsibility for infants with available parents so readily or they wouldn't be maintaining the kind of reputation it would be as damaging to one's Law to interfere with."

"That's their Law, not hers."

“Maelstrom, Axis, Abyss, let’s focus on the facts of the case.”