"Paladin girl, I am regrettably aware of no country in which accuracy is considered a complete defense against charges of heresy."

"Even if it were it's the kind of thing that should exist in writing somewhere."

"I don't think that would really help most people. ...I guess the magistrates would be able to read it."

"How many laws do surfacers have??"

"...What were you expecting?"

"I mean, we don't exactly have anything written down, like you were saying, but the sorts of rules everyone would agree on are pretty simple. Don't kill anyone, don't take their stuff, don't attack them without a good reason, listen to the chief, don't pick a fight with another tribe if your tribe isn't okay with it, that sort of thing."

"In a larger group, 'listen to the chief' must be replaced with something much, much more complicated. I think from the Queen's perspective the law can nearly all be 'listen to the Queen', but that's because she is always present in every situation she shows up to. The rest of Mendev ought to have something written to consult in her absence even if the first law of the land were to be that she could override everything subsequent in it at will."

"...Can most surfacers read?"

"No."

"Depends where you live," Thall says at the same time.

"It depends where you live. But, say, Select Stasia can read, and people could go ask her what it said, if there were a document at all. Without one they can... ask the very people who are charged with enforcement... which has drawbacks."

"No one really follows the law all the time anyways. They just decide whether to go after you for it based on how much they like you."

Sigh. "Pretty sure they go after thieves everywhere."

"I am actually reasonably confident that I have never broken a law in my life unless there is an unwritten Mendevian one I have fallen afoul of very recently."

"Hate to break it to you, Chief, but there almost certainly is." He gestures around the table. "I mean, you've been hanging out with us lot, right? Loads of normal things are illegal if you're doing them with a criminal."

"Most of us aren't criminals!"

"I acquired specific criminal-related authorizations for you and Thall both."

"I'm not saying they'd prosecute you, I'm just saying lots of totally normal things are technically illegal."

"I have not personally had the opportunity to verify this, but supposedly in the early days of the Yixing Empire many scholars believed believed that making the laws public so that anyone could read them would be harmful. Specifically, they feared that if their subjects could read the laws they would take advantage of this to abuse unintended defects of the law to carry out behavior that was not intended to be permissible. Perhaps Mendev has adopted the same philosophy."

"I doubt it. I've never heard of the Yixing Empire."

"You haven't? But it is one of the greatest empires of Tian Xia!"

"...I don't think I've heard of any countries in Tian Xia."

"Is Tian Xia not itself a country from which the continent takes its name? - anyway, they could have come to the same conclusion without having the example to hand."

"It is not! The continent takes its name from the phrase all under Heaven, which translates roughly to 'all under Heaven' in Hallit. Of course, this name is a misnomer, for multiple reasons. First, insofar as Tian Xia can said to be under Heaven, the other continents of Golarion are also under Heaven, particularly considering the death of Shizuru. Second, Heaven is not located on the same plane as Golarion, and thus it is nonsensical to describe a continent as being 'under' it."

"...I realize the laws where I grew up weren't exactly normal, but I think most places have... laws that are only enforced if the people in charge want them to be?"