"And you can't let just let anyone leave because then there won't be enough people to fight?"

"Maybe you could work something out with truth spells? To have them say they weren't just breaking the law to have an excuse to go home. ...And assign them to doing work on the home front, whatever we need the most."

"You can't find truth spells just lying around on the street."

"There might be a handful of offenses that would normally receive a death sentence for which we could safely send people to the Condemned instead, if the circumstances are as she described. Few, though, with the alterations we're already making to the handbook."

"Yes, this is already substantially less heavy on the executions for first offenses. We can discuss more details of how we could try to figure out if you've got relevant divinatory powers after this meeting, Ember."

Nod.

For the regulations surrounding proscribed and not-proscribed-but-somewhat-restricted deities, they're using Lastwall Worldwound fort punishments, but Mendevian standards for which gods are actually proscribed or restricted, right? They can summarize Mendevian-law-as-enforced about which deities are allowed if he likes but it's really very straightforward.

...Also, Mendevian law does allow for adventurers operating under a Mendevian command and subject to Mendevian discipline to be given permission by the Queen (or someone she's delegated this power to) to maintain their preexisting relationships with a proscribed deity or similar entity that isn't demon-affiliated. It's fine if he doesn't want to add any new adventurers like that, but there are a couple of preexisting people who have received that permission, and it seems like it would be a problem to suddenly arrest them.

If it is really very straightforward he would like a written list.

Yes, he's fine with accepting adventurers who are Norgorberite or Asmodean or whatever. Adventurers operate under less regimented structures, can leave whenever they want, and can accordingly have less exacting rules.

Good gods: Completely fine. It is never a crime to worship a Good god, nor to be their cleric (or inquisitor or paladin or...). They are guessing he doesn't want information about ecclesiastical courts in Mendev.

Evil gods: Mendev is a Good country! They're not going to decide that actually Evil gods are totally fine! They have various straightforward treaty-compliant exceptions for Chelish detachments, the Order of the Godclaw, independent adventurers, etc., and the aforementioned procedures for non-independent adventurers, but that's completely different from just declaring it legal. In practice they enforce the law much more strictly for anything demon-adjacent (unempowered thieves who pray to Norgorber get sent to the Condemned, unempowered Baphomite thieves get the noose), and in practice they're only going to notice anyone unempowered if they're committing other crimes, but for clerics who didn't go through the procedure to get a dispensation it generally doesn't make a difference — you can't send a Norgorberite cleric to the Condemned, you'd be risking them channeling negative at a key moment in a battle.

Neutral gods: In practice, clerics of Neutral gods that channel positive are also completely allowed, even if their god is controversial. (Mendevian law does not consider the sort of entity that drives people mad with even the slightest touch to be relevantly 'gods,' though it's not like madmen are generally trying to join the army.) Negative-channeling clerics of Neutral gods are subject to much more intense scrutiny (in practice mainly amounting to carefully interviewing them to assess whether they're plotting sabotage, supervising their activities, and trying to give them as many opportunities to do Good as possible so they can be more militarily useful). This includes negative-channeling clerics of Lawful Neutral gods; the Second Crusade had a bad experience with a cult of the minor goddess Alseta that believed any attempt at closing the Worldwound to be blasphemous. ...Prior to the Worldwound opening there were technically some laws restricting some of the Neutral gods, but no one thinks of those as real laws anymore, he doesn't need to worry about them. There are currently a few faith-specific restrictions (for example, clerics of Groetus are forbidden from preaching regardless of how they channel), and they've accumulated some wisdom about tasks that it's unwise to assign clerics of specific gods to, but they're really much less worried about him enforcing any of that than about him deciding he considers any of their positive-channeling clerics objectionable.

(His officers know somewhat more about how things are done in Lastwall than the common soldiers, but some of them are definitely still misinformed. One of them is apparently under the impression Lastwall bans clerics of every Chaotic god but Desna. One of them thinks Lastwall executes prostitutes working in the cities, though not camp followers, and also anyone who ever prays to Calistria. More than one of them believes that the Order of the Godclaw has been blessed by Iomedae and counts Lastfolk among its founding members.)

Witchcraft is handled separately, and subject to its own restrictions, though if they're understanding right it sounds like that's also the case in Lastwall. It doesn't come up much, witches are mostly Evildoers serving the demons and uninterested in restraining themselves enough to infiltrate the army.

Blai does not expect to find any positive channeling clerics objectionable and agrees that you should not be sending clerics to missions they are obviously labeled as unsuited for. He would be inclined to trust even a negative-channeling Abadaran reasonably far, personally, but if that's not a thing that comes up much he can abide by their increased suspicion. He can correct... some... of these beliefs about Lastwall. Most confidently the Godclaw one. What does he need to know about witchcraft?

(The army doesn't have many Abadarans, they're constantly doing things like demanding triple the fair wage that every other cleric of their rank and circle receives. If you try to conscript them anyway sometimes they lose their powers, so mostly they're permitted to sell their services in Mendev's cities.)

Witches learn magic by bargaining with powerful spirits for it. Unlike clerics, they don't come with channels, an aura that matches their patron, or any obvious indication of their patron's identity. It's not strictly speaking impossible for a witch or their patron to be Good, but in practice both witches and their patrons tend to be Evil, and even Good witches are sometimes deceived by Evil patrons into serving their ends. Good witches who want to serve Mendev can get dispensations to do so, but it's the sort of thing they try to be careful about, you can't rely just on the witch's word.

 Witches have familiars, kind of like a wizard familiar except Eviller. Witchery tends to be more varied than the magic of wizards or clerics (though less so than that of sorcerers); this person has heard of witches who can force others to struggle with anything they attempt, witches who can curse the land so nothing can grow, witches who can put people into a sleep they never wake from, witches who can reach into your soul and make the slightest temptation towards Evil grow a thousandfold until it's all you can think of, witches who can grow wings and fly...

  Areelu Vorlesh was a witch, and that really tells you everything you need to know.

   Sometimes people confuse witches with shamans, like Sarkoris used to have, but they're actually completely different! If he's not sure whether someone is a witch or a shaman he can hand them over to the Inquisition and they'll sort it out.

"Your advisors do not seem very educated on the state of magic outside of Mendev. Witches who behave in ways generally regarded as Good are somewhat more common in areas further from the Worldwound."

The last shaman he met was a serial killer so he's not actually sure what distinguishing their exact magic type is supposed to add to the situation but it's good to know.

Any other anticipated points of friction with the new code?

Shamans aren't usually serial killers! Maybe they were actually a witch in disguise.

....In terms of other points of friction, is he really intending to prosecute people for everything that's listed in this handbook as a form of illegal corruption? Not that it's legal in Mendev, per se, but there's illegal and there's illegal.

She did not have a familiar.

There is not really in his opinion illegal and illegal. Emphasizing a word does not change its meaning. If they are perfectly happy to send someone to the Condemned for pickpocketing a few silver to spend on bread then an officer spending the budget for boots on his mistress is acting worse, not better.

Does he have a solution for where to get enough people to staff every position that has to handle a budget with zero corruption? Not that he would ever embezzle, of course, but he can't handle the entire budget.

"It's not right for officers to steal from their men! Maybe if you hang them their replacements will learn their lesson."

"You could replace them all with paladins?"

"You can't have paladins handling money, they'll Fall."

"—I agree that it can sometimes tempt people into Falling who'd otherwise be fine, but it's not impossible for a paladin to touch a budget. But being a paladin is no guarantee that someone can read, or do figures."

Well, how many positions are they talking about here, and about how much are they losing to corruption? Is it enough that they can afford an Abadaran at the price they ask in exchange for it not happening?

......It depends how you count. Does he mean to count positions that are managing money, or positions that are managing a lot of money, or positions that are managing no money but could still engage in meaningful corruption with supplies? Is he only counting the people on Crusade, or is he also counting people handling logistics in Nerosyan or working at forts along the Wardstone line? They can make guesses about those numbers, and they even mostly agree with each other.

But they don't have a good way to keep track of how much they're losing to corruption, it's not like people report how much corruption they're doing, and of course it depends on details like 'do you also count people getting more funding for the army by doing favors that everyone knows are acceptable but might technically count as corruption if you're trying to copy Lastwall,' 'do you count people making sure that they and the people they particularly favor get the best coats, if they would have been getting a coat regardless,' 'is it corruption if someone sells a not-very-useful magic item donated to the Crusade to purchase something they actually need,' 'do you account for the fact that some of these positions would need to be paid more if they weren't de facto getting away with skimming,' and so on. People are willing to take their best guess here, too, but the guesses are wildly different and mostly seem to consist of picking numbers that feel right. Irabeth can give a concrete example of a Baphomite she specifically caught embezzling Kenabres resources for the use of a Baphomet cult, and she'd guess that crusaders embezzling would embezzle less, since they don't specifically want Baphomet to win? 

Everyone agrees that they could definitely afford a single Abadaran, even with the premium they'll demand for coming on Crusade, and could definitely not afford to replace anyone who gets anywhere near the budget with an Abadaran. (Using corruption reduction to pay for significant numbers of Abadarans also has the issue of the costs being upfront and the benefits being somewhat delayed.)

Blai is not asking for exact figures but he hopes that at some point someone put down a number on a piece of paper, disbursed that amount of money, had an idea for how much stuff it would buy, and contacted reality at any point to see if that amount of stuff reached its destination, and if not by what very approximate percentage.

It might depend on the favor. He would not propose to police somebody making introductions between their acquaintances, using spell slots that are not otherwise spoken for, ordering pork instead of mutton for the camp stewpot, etcetera, in exchange for crusade funding. If the coats are not of pretty uniform quality something fishy might be going on there. Liquidating magic items from donation form A into donation form B seems fine provided the sale, itself, is not reproachable (to a favored buyer at a discount, for example) and that donation B makes it to the intended coffer.

By what mechanism would these positions need to be paid more if they weren't compensated under the table? Wasn't that the entire reason they don't already have lots of Abadarans?

Maybe fewer people could be going near the budget. Who most unquestionably needs to be going near the budget and having own-recognizance interactions with it, and can that number be small enough for the one Abadaran they can definitely afford to audit all of them?

Usually the people who are handling money are able to buy around the amount of stuff you'd expect! It's just that the amount of stuff they'd expect is influenced by the fact that the people handling money might be pocketing or redirecting some of it.

Many of those positions come with expectations for certain supplies and equipment that the people occupying them will pay for from their own salary, and the salaries are... not necessarily sufficient to actually cover the costs. In principle they could make some of those supplies come out of the general budget (which is what they'd do if they put Abadarans in those positions, assuming they didn't want the Abadarans to see combat) but that doesn't really save money, it just moves it.

How much personal attention do they want the Abadaran to be paying to each of them? Is he imagining 'make everyone write down how much they spend on everything and have the Abadaran look,' which will catch anyone who's being an idiot about their corruption, or 'have everyone testify under Truthtelling once a month that they haven't done anything corrupt,' or something else?

It is worth "just moving money" to not be corrupt as fuck.

Checking under a Truthtelling once a month sounds great! If it's too many people for that to be economical, they could have the Abadaran choose who to audit randomly, on the same principle that makes people more honest when they know they're going to have to step into a Zone of Truth even though they might make their save.