The Ylvainan Inquisition tried many heretical Ylvainans over the centuries. Some of them openly defied the Ylvainan Faith. Others were exceedingly careful in expressing their deviant beliefs.
When the inquisition caught on to the heretics and dragged them to their tribunals, it was quite hard to know for certain if someone was guilty. While many tribunals generally issued a unanimous judgement of guilt, sometimes an extreme case would appear where it was truly difficult to be sure of someone's guilt.
In cases where an inquisitor was deeply conflicted about someone's guilt, they could choose to abstain from issuing their judgement.
This was a rare event, but fairly problematic. These kinds of edge cases might also prompt another inquisitor to take the rare step of acquitting the accused!
This resulted in a tie, whereby the tribunal became stuck between two verdicts!
