Order of the Gauntlet: On Matters of Law and Justice
Good is the absence of evil. It means to seek peace, and to enforce it; it means to seek depravity, and to denounce it; and it means to trust in your god and yourself, for the greatest good of all is called faith. Goodness is not lawfulness. Law is commandment, of god or of mortals. It is the call of authority, and the sanction of its opponents. Law is the father of order. To renounce it is to invite chaos, in which there is neither meaning nor life. Law can be corrupted. Lawfulness is not goodness. I say to you, then, that we seek not to be good or to be lawful, but to be just. For what is it to be good, if we cannot define the acts that oppose it? What is to be lawful, if it is a devil's commands we obey? Justice is the hand that feeds the hungry, and the shield that guards the weak. It is the sword that fells the wicked, and the cloak that warms the indigent. It is for justice that the Order of the Gauntlet stands watch. And it is justice that Tyr and Torm, Helm and Hoar demand.