Severus' Judgement Against Count Ossarius

Ossarius.

I find you guilty of Kidnapping.

You have taken countless innocents and sold them into slavery.  Men, women, and children that you had no right to take, with your only justification the enrichment of your coffers and your own pleasure.  Every Rostillian has the right of liberty under the law, and only by just trial may this liberty be taken from them.  You have stolen this liberty and made mockery of the laws that your forefathers gave into your keeping.  You have abused the people of your county and others.  You have done all this

I find you guilty of Murder.

You have taken these same people and given them over to necromancers and demons to torture and kill.  Inflicting unbearable torments and destroying souls for your own pleasure.  You have poisoned your two eldest sons and attempted to poison the third.  These sins were done in your name and by your will, and the weight of the crimes falls fully upon your shoulders.  How many here have lost mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters to your murderous greed?

I find you guilty of Treason.

You have broken your vows and failed in your duties to the true throne of Rostilla. You have made war upon both Pelasgus and Largitas.  The duties of your office as a count require your service to the king, to the gods, to your neighbors, and to your people.  You have failed each and every one of these duties, willfully, and with malice.

I find you guilty of Heresy.

You have fornicated with demons, traded in human misery to gain demonic allies, supped with them and named them friend.  You have perverted the worship of the true gods. You denied your own children proper burial that their souls might lay lost and confused.  Your soul stinks of the evil you have done.

You revolt me.  You wear the body of a man, but your soul is a charnel pit of rot and excrement.

I sentence you to death.

For your crimes without number there are not enough years of your life left, or torments in the realm of man to begin to balance the scales.  Had I more time, I would make a beginning that your screams would be a lesson to the people that no man, however high, may make a mockery of the laws of men and gods and not suffer the consequences of his evil.

Had I the time I would make you drink molten gold, that your burning greed for gold at last be fully satisified.  Alas, I do not have the time for such displays, but the torments you escape in this world, you will face in the next.  I am comforted to know that when my great grandchildren sleep in their graves, you will yet be screaming as your spirit burns in the eternal flames of your own iniquity.

To others, I have granted the right to confess their sins, that Legis might have some mercy upon their souls.

I deny you this right. You have damned yourself by your actions.  As you lived in your sins, you will die in them.  May your screams of torments from the outer darkness trouble the dreams of those whose doom even now is silently coursing them.

Largitas, the sword.

(Behead, with a basin beneath to collect the blood.)

(Walking down off the throne, Severus picks up the basin and holds it high)

Hear me, O Gods of My Ancestors

By Bela I have taken this land,

In Legis, I claim it as my own.

 
To Gods and Men, I offer my oath.

To all Men, Justice

To our dead, honor, to our sick, aid.

To our enemies, the sword

To our people, bounty and joy

And to Evil, an abiding wrath

I offer this libation to seal my oath

(As he pours out the count's blood upon the ground)

May the rivers of Rostilla run red with blood until the wound flows clean.

May plague take the corrupt and may fire take the unclean dead.

May our enemies turn upon each other like the Jackals they are.

May our enemies find no joy or sustenance

And may every shadow haunt them with the doom that comes for them.

So Say I.

Severus Surrexus, King of Rostilla