"I see. All right. Any other changes you'd see made besides downgrading first offense death penalty cases to penal legion assignment?"

She has some commentary on the fraternization rules ("though if you intend to make an exception for preexisting relationships I expect them to be tolerable"), and she's not sure what effect it will have to completely rule out the possibility of torturous executions ("perhaps none, they are already very rare, but I don't know how much it matters that they are not impossible.")

He thinks he can make an exception for preexisting relationships but he is not budging on torturous executions. See, he knows torture is evil because he learned how to do it in evil school.

It is honestly very strange that he's insistent on punishing some crimes so unusually harshly but unwilling to consider the prospect of anything more severe than a beheading for other crimes, but she's diplomatic enough not to say so aloud.

Did he have any other questions for her before she departs?

He wants some numbers of how many soldiers are allocated to the Crusade and some information about how they're organized but then he thinks that will be all for now.

Between the mobile army and the forces who are joining from Kenabres, they have about ten thousand people in total, organized like so, and may be able to pick up a few reinforcements from these forts they pass along the way. Compared to the Chelish Worldwound forces, they have more clerics, many fewer wizards, and many more paladins; it's hard to compare sorcerers directly, because they draw the lines a little differently, but it seems like more of Mendev's army is sorcerers, due to Mendev conscripting all of them. These military orders (included in the ten thousand) are nominally independent but have been committed to the Crusade by their commanders; here is some procedural information he should be aware of (this Sarenrite order enforces the following additional rules internally and should not be prevented from doing that, this Gorumite order permits dueling among its members, this other tiny Sarenrite order has a religious prohibition on killing people but not on 'casting a Bless on allies who kill people'...)

Very important to account for the religious dictates of one's allies, he appreciates that.

One of Galfrey's guards has a brief update for him before the next meeting. Fiducia Rathimus will be accompanying the army in his capacity as an Abadaran arbitrator in the case of a treaty dispute. He is willing to sell spells and other services while accompanying them, though he is not willing to participate in combat for any price Mendev is capable of paying. Unrelatedly, Horgus Gwerm has decided to donate several magic items from his personal collection to the army; many of them are very situational, here are his recommendations for who could make the most use of them. Also, in case he hasn't already been informed of this, he should prepare a short speech to deliver this afternoon.

Also, the rest of his advisors have arrived! Does he have a preference for who to speak to next between Wilcer Garms (his quartermaster, also advising him on logistics), Nurah Dendiwhar (historian and geographer), Sosiel Vaenic (liason to foreign churches), and Captain Harmattan (another military advisor, albeit with less of a tactical focus)?

Blai has no reason to override the recommendations of where the magic item donations should go. He wants Quartermaster Garms first and then Songbird Vaenic.

"Hello, Select! It's great to meet you."

"And you as well. I have a few questions as regards my personal equipment; I'm used to fuller chain and what I've been wearing this past while is looted off a cultist and not magical and could be more efficiently fitted to someone else, and I'd also benefit from a buckler. Is that doable? How much materiel is here in Kenabres now?"

"Of course! Only the best for our Knight-Commander." Some of it's going to need to be requisitioned for him, but they're not about to let the Knight-Commander go around half-defenseless. "We should have those for you by the end of the day. In terms of what else we've got..."

He has a neatly-organized list! They're lower on magic armor than the Chelish army, and they certainly aren't putting anyone in a Hell-forged breastplate, but it's not like they're sending their troops into battle naked. In terms of supplies, the biggest goods they could use more of are cold iron arrows (they're not disastrously low, but they're going to need to make very sure they get timely replacements, particularly with the best smith in Kenabres missing), as well as boots and coats that will stand up to the weather in Drezen.

Who are their usual suppliers and are they aware of the forthcoming change in demand?

List of suppliers! (The textiles are disproportionately being produced by any of several of Mendevian lay religious orders. Wands and scrolls and potions are mostly brought in from Isarn as the single most wizard-heavy place reliably within a single hop from Nerosyan. The iron is sourced from the Brevic mountains, here are the various places that can turn it into cold iron arrows. And so on, and so forth.) He has notes on how their various suppliers trade off on price, timeliness, and quality. Right now they're leaning pretty far on the 'lower price' part of the tradeoff.

...Their suppliers have definitely not been told about the change in demand. He only heard yesterday that Her Majesty might be calling a crusade, see.

...right, well, they should be told. Do they have much supply exchange with the Chelish forces, since their low-urgency supply comes through Kenabres? Obviously the coats would be the wrong colors, but.

"Not much, no. We get paper from them, and a few magic items you can't get anywhere else, and they'll sometimes come to us in a pinch, but... well, it's not polite to gossip about people helping us fight the demons. I'm sure you've heard the rumors." He looks a little uncomfortable.

"I am familiar with the fact that they are the possessions of Hell but compromising far enough to buy their paper seems the least we can do with a supply situation this shaky. They have cold iron arrowheads too."

"What people say is, half their supplies are coming straight from Hell and they don't want to let anyone who still follows the Good gods take advantage of Asmodeus's so-called generosity. I don't know how much truth there is to it. They're clearly willing to sell us paper, but anyone who's tried to buy armor off them gets shown the door." He sighs. "But if you've got a lead on buying arrowheads from them for prices that wouldn't make Mammon dance with glee, I'm not opposed. Last time I looked it was cheaper to go through our suppliers, but last time we weren't trying to run a surprise crusade."

"...what prices are you talking about here for the armor?"

"For the armor? The highest offer I know of anyone giving them is—" He names a price. It is in fact more than the Chelish army accounts that type of armor as being worth, though it wouldn't correspond to more of a markup than some suppliers apply when selling to Asmodeans. "And they told him to get lost, not in those words. For the arrows they told us it'd be—" He names a more reasonable price (more than they'd cost within Cheliax, but not outrageous when accounting for transportation costs).

"The armor was a gouge, the arrowheads aren't ridiculous unless they were forged on-site with local raw iron."

"Good to know. If we can't get enough from our local suppliers I can see about buying some off them."

"I assume you already know that they'll pay a premium for holy bows, since they can't manufacture them and it'll let them save on the arrows."

Nod. "Think we've sold them a couple, but they take an awful lot of upfront investment to make, and they generally haven't been thrilled with the prospect of paying for all the materials in advance."