Cayden chooses a delegate
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By tradition, nearly all clerics of Cayden Cailean have one of two professions, and in Cheliax anyone who kept a bar and seemed even the least bit Good or magical was under suspicion. Further, he is the god of bravery (some might say recklessness, and the very unkind would say stupidity), and bravery wasn't a trait much rewarded in Cheliax even among those who weren't altruistically inclined, which nearly all of Cayden Cailean's clerics were.

Which is to say that most clerics of Cayden Cailean in Cheliax are, not to put too fine a point on it, dead. 

But Cayden Cailean still keeps an eye on those he considers his followers in Cheliax and in Nidal and in Razmiran-- whether they know themselves to be his followers or not. Sometimes he sends them dreams, to give them hope, to let them know that the world can be better than this. 

And he likes Elie Contonnet.  

So one morning a recent wizard school graduate wakes up from a very nice dream with a cleric circle, a splitting headache, and the message resounding in her head: YOU ARE A DELEGATE TO THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION

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Tetula arrives at a government building and says to the most official-looking person she can see, "Hello! I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to be a delegate to the constitutional convention!"

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The most official-looking person she can see is a lawyer in a very fancy robe* who's been consulting on the preexisting legal code who looks down his nose at this new graduate daring to speak to him so informally. She dares speak to him so? A mere first-circle wizard? He considers having her whipped but if she's a delegate she might be able to get revenge later. "That's none of my concern," he says, and sweeps past.

(*: Yes, he's a wizard, yes, he's soul-sold, no, he didn't get executed when the new Queen swept it, yes, this means he has ten times as much work to do and ten percent of the people to do it with, do you have anything else to trouble him with?)

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That worked less well than hoped!

Is there a guard? Or perhaps a person with a sign that says THIS WAY TO THE DELEGATES?

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There's absolutely a guard! You need guards, given what the streets are sometimes like.

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"Hello! I'm pretty sure I'm a delegate but I don't know any of the procedures here."

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"Yes, ma'am," he says. "Please wait here." (The procedure is to call his boss.)

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What a good procedure!

She looks around the government building for anything interesting. She hasn't gotten to wait in government buildings before and this is a new and exciting experience!

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The government building was recently retrofitted, which is why there isn't a big statue of an impaled angel right in the middle of the hallway! Instead it's just big and bleak. There's some Iomedaean and Litran flags up occasionally, but they don't take up much space.

Meanwhile, the guard wants to tell his boss that another delegate showed up, and his boss shows up. She's got a bit of a Galtan accent, having been working for Her Majesty since before She was Her Majesty. "You're the delegate?" She looks at the young woman. Not a noble. "Elected or religious?" The people they teleport in are usually Arcane Marked.

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Tetula examines the flag of Iomedae-- it's very pretty! she's never seen a flag like this before!-- until the boss arrives. 

 

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"Religious. I think. I wasn't elected, at any rate."

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This is going to be one of the interesting ones, she can already tell.

"Then why do you think you're a delegate?"

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"I woke up this morning with a new cleric circle and a strong feeling that someone in my dream had given me the message that I was supposed to be a delegate. I assume that's religious? I don't want to make assumptions about who can and can't give cleric circles."

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Of course it is. "Sounds like a god. Do you know what god gave it?" She's guessing Desna but may as well ask before she goes and tries to get one of the Queen's companions to deal with this irregular delegate.

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"I don't have... a name?"

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... Okay, yeah, this is probably something for that regicide the Queen's good friend, Élie Cotonnet.

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There are some intermediate levels of management handling matters for the constitutional delegates, otherwise the Queen and Archmages wouldn't have time for all their other important matters of state, defending the realm from monsters, inscrutable archmage things, or whatever else it is that people like them do. "Fate" Solos (Short for "Aroden's Fate") is the senior bureaucrat in charge of the delegates representing extraplanar busybodies presumably because, having been raised in Rahadoum, he has a combination of education and impartiality in religious matters that many others in Her Majesty's service lack.

"So you don't know who sponsored you," he says, once the situation has been explained. "Is there anyone you pray to regularly? What spells and powers have you been given?"

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"I recognize one of my spells, I have Charm Person. I didn't cast it because I didn't have any particular reason to charm anyone and I don't know if I need a focus to cast it."

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Most clerics don't get that. Could be Shelyn, or Cayden, or - most of the powers in Hell, who would probably not be so bold. Aura sight shows her as Chaotic Good, so -

"You appear to be a cleric of Cayden Cailean. Do you wish to represent him at this convention?"

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"Is... not knowing anything about him going to be a problem?"

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"...How literal are you being, when you say 'not knowing anything about him'?"

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"He's... the useless, incompetent drunk who ascended to godhood on a whim, worshipped only by fools and the debauched who mistakenly call "pleasure" what is actually indulgence of their weakness, and the fact that anyone worships him shows the fundamental feebility of good and the inevitable triumph of Asmodeus? --Also I have had very nice dreams with a recurring male character for the past four years and that character is also the man who told me to go to the convention so I can extrapolate?"

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What a creep. (Cayden, that is. Tetula has givin no indications of being a creep.)

 

"That is - a perspective. A more traditional Caydenite perspective is that he is a god of bravery and liberation, a god who commands, approximately, that you do not let any earthly rules or authority stand in the way of doing 'the right thing', a god of freed slaves and of the people who fight to free them. And also a god of drink and revelry.

...All that said, no, it's not a problem for the convention if you don't know very much about your god. If Cayden wanted someone who knew him better he could have picked someone who knew him better." Maybe not, actually, given Infernal Cheliax, but that's Cayden's problem. "The only question is whether or not you in fact want to represent him."

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"That sounds like the right guy, all right!"

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"...will the other Caydenites be upset that someone who doesn't know any theology is going to be voting with them?"

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"You'd have to ask them but I don't think so. Cayden Cailean doesn't have a lot of formal theology."

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