"I don't think that concession would substantially affect the result. It was a rabbit. Animals do not receive petitioner bodies and do not endure an eternity of suffering, so Maledicting one does not cause substantially more Evil than the common mortal practice of eating them. Which does not, without more, cause someone to be Evil. Asmodeus v. Erastil, undated."

"Hell is simply asking for a concession that if we are basing the determination primarily on consequences, the act of Maledicting rabbits does weigh on the scale at all.

After all, sending a victim to a plane that is universally on fire is substantially worse than the "conditions better than natural" contemplated in the Erastil decision. Under In re Vick, unnecessary harm to animals is generally Evil, after all."

"Fine. Agreed. Killing a rabbit in a way that causes it to die twice instead of once is in fact bad. But if we want to get into how bad we'd need to talk about context, and whether it was or was not necessary, and exactly how much Good and Evil resulted, all that. And it's what? Three, four instances of animal testing? Not to endorse it or anything, but I really don't see that making the difference for this guy. A minute ago we were talking about the fate of the world!"

"Can I assume the rest of Good agrees with Elysium on this?"

"Broadly yes, including the objections. And we reserve the right to emphasize those arguments further or add new ones depending on what your trick is."

"No trick.

Because while Heaven is correct that Maledicted animals do not receive petitioner bodies and cannot survive in the Outer Planes, the decedent was one of the large majority of mortals who do not know that. He took the risk of sending a victim to Hell for a genuine eternity. And that is Evil, according to the way Heaven, Elysium, and now Nirvana claim to understand Malediction."

"Even though that harm never happened."

"It's some amount Evil just to set events in motion that could lead to a specific, known harm even if events turn out differently. Any different rule would simply be moral luck. In re Kiyamvir, twenty-one minutes ago."

"The decedent at issue in Kiyamvir was not Evil, and would have been if the risk he took had in fact killed anyone. That difference matters.

Harrow's risk of Evil was taken in the pursuit of Good. And the Evil was mitigated by confirming it wasn't known what would happen to the animal and by scrying it afterward so that if he needed another test he would know the answer. Paizo estimated two castings of an Evil spell in succession to change someone's alignment. This is a fraction of a fraction. It wouldn't make him Evil if weighed against his normal life, let alone against his extremely Good work."

"It did occur to him to scry one of his victims, eventually. That does not exactly make him look like a saint.

And Paizo was talking about any Evil spell, in full generality. This one isn't exactly Infernal Healing. It's Malediction. By the test able counsel from Good think we should apply, that's potentially an infinite amount of Evil."

"Not infinite. Only as long as Hell is a dominion of torment."

"Potentially infinite. My point remains that if His Honor chooses to judge by consequences rather than rules, by what outcomes could reasonably be foreseen by a person exercising ordinary care, and further agrees with Good that Malediction is Evil because of the unpleasantness of the destination, then this one act was extremely Evil. And the decedent's multiple instances of it are more than enough to be defining."

"That is wrong on a genuinely impressive number of levels. It misquotes Paizo, for one. Multiple instances "in succession," which this was not.

More fundamentally. A person of ordinary care would assume, as Harrow did, that Hell does not torture rabbits because no one has ever heard of Hell torturing a rabbit.  He simply took this to mean there was a known answer. He was arguably negligent, but certainly not culpably so. This is a very context-dependent argument. If counsel from Hell insists on arguing it then we can, but even by Paizo's extremely low bar, this small number of castings would not take Harrow from Good to Evil. And as Elysium says, a minute ago we were talking about the fate of the world."

"Yes, many have done great Evil in the pursuit of some cause they believed was larger. And repeatedly ordering another to cast Malediction is certainly enough to take someone from Neutral to Evil. It is far from established that the decedent was otherwise Good."

"I will take this under advisement, and tentatively intend to count it as an Evil act but less so than a Malediction cast on a being with a soul. In the meantime, this case does seem more likely to turn on the decedent's research activities. Any objections?"

"No objection, Your Honor, but Hell requests a clarification that it was an Evil act solely or primarily because Malediction is an Evil spell. It remains Hell's position that Malediction is Evil because it interrupts Pharasma's judgment. Because an animal subject does not properly have an eternal fate of any alignment, any potential grounds based on consequences do not apply here."

"That position implies Harrow's act was not Evil at all."

"Hell would be willing to stipulate to that. A slight departure from Paizo, but in an unusual enough circumstance that the Court need not consider itself bound."

"No stipulation. Heaven instead disputes the claim that mortals affecting the sorting is inherently Evil, and urges the Court not to make the requested change.

The Court's proposed ruling as stated is agreeable. In fact, there is precedent that sending a rabbit to Hell temporarily, without full knowledge and under circumstances that could result in Good, explicitly should not be sufficient to change how the Judge views their alignment. 2334, in re Easter."

"Hearing no objections from any party, I'm going to consider the decedent's animal testing to be Evil for one reason or another but not commensurately so with an ordinary Malediction.

Before we move to final statements. Harrow. Would you like to speak on your own account?

"I don't- I don't know what you need to hear.

Is it true? About more people getting damned? I left my research with the Order, I can ask them to destroy it, there's a password..."

"Whether the completion of your research would result in more people being sorted to Evil afterlives or fewer is a question of some concern to this Court. But in either case, this trial is about your actions while alive. Any later actions, such as use of the password, would be an intervention by your assigned afterlife and would be outside my jurisdiction."

"I never thought I might be sending more people to Hell. I wanted to avoid that. That was the point. And, I know Mr.- the advocate from Hell might be lying, he's a devil and that's what they do,"

"Objection!"

"Overruled, he can speak. There's no jury here to prejudice."