She spends most of the night before the convention writing up a list of committees. You want some radical ones, of course, separate from the ones that weigh in on issues it is important to get right. You want people to self-sort; the people who are knowledgeable making decisions that require knowledge, the people who don't - well, making decisions that don't. Ultimately she comes up with:

A Committee On Excising The Influence Of Diabolism And Asmodeanism From Our Country - probably going to be a disaster, but you've got to have it. Presumably one of the Iomedaeans will end up chairing it.

A Committee On Promulgating The Teachings Of Good Churches To The Misled Chelish People - hopefully will attract all of the people who want to work on the above but can identify at a glance that that committee's going to be tearing around being a disaster.

A Committee On The Rights Of Free Chelish Citizens And The Obligations Of Those Who Rule Them - happy, Archmage Cotonnet? Chaired by the Archduchess, obviously. 

A Committee On Alternative Political Arrangements To Monarchy And Ways They May Be Further Studied - you'd better be happy by now, Archmage Cotonnet, even if the committee ends up just recommending sending a lot of people to study in Lastwall -

A Committee On Relations With Those People Kin To The Chelish People - Where nearly all of the important decisions that seem actually yet unmade are, not that she expects the committee to make them. Who better to chair it than Joan-Pau?

A Committee For Safe Roads And Safe Villages - bandits and monsters, the whole of the reason why the nobility exist and can't be replaced. She intends to chair this one herself.

A Committee On Repairing, Replacing, Financing, etc Infrastructure Damaged or Destroyed In Hell's Sack Of Our Country - actually important, hopefully too boring for the mob, she intends to try to get the Queen's Abadaran friend to chair it. He's count of Egorian, after all, and while technically Egorian wasn't destroyed in Hell's sack of the country except indirectly it's got to have an interest in Her Majesty's support for repairs.

A Committee On Any Necessary Alterations To the Forms of the Chelish Monarchy Given Its Long Interruption - this one will get to do the only thing they have any business doing here at all, which is voting to acknowledge the restoration of all of the circa-4600 privileges of the monarchy. She's asked all the archdukes to send a representative to it - it's not worth their coming themselves but someone on their staff who can take notes and give them a summary if any amendments end up being credibly worthwhile. Her intent is to have this one chaired by the single more boring, legalistic, nose-down representative to the convention she can find, someone who'll happily just read through the entire old code and propose more amendments for copy-editing than content.

In the morning, promptly after the Queen and Archmage's speeches, she has her secretary set up sign-ups on one side of the hall. Then she makes a brief announcement. 

"By the grace of the Good gods, by the grace of Her Majesty, we are gathered here in optimism with this noble purpose. I imagine that the important work of this convention will be better done in smaller groups, and have proposed some to get us started." She reads out the groups. "It seems premature - eager though we all are to return to our duties at home - for these committees to write any document to which we would hope to be bound; rather I propose that each committee produce a report for Her Majesty and for the convention at large on their subject area, with a subsequent discussion on whether their recommendations are to be adopted." She's lost more than half the crowd by using words with five syllables but she'd really rather drop those as soon as possible. "I have asked some of our noble delegates to shoulder the responsibility of chairing these committees, and should anyone propose additional committees I recommend that their proposal incorporate a recommendation for a chair as well. It is not my intent that anyone be obliged in participation in the committees, but I hope that they will employ you to good effect if you choose to join one. Eternally are we grateful to Her Majesty, to her allies, and to the Good gods for peace and for our freedom."

He'd expected something like this – though not so soon, and not from the duchess, who in her previous life had never demonstrated any interest in parliamentary procedure. 

It's clever, he'll give her that. The duchess, of course, is perfectly right that the work of the convention requires the formation of commmittees. But these are her committees: no doubt she's already arranged for her allies among the resurrected nobility to staff the important ones (public safety, monarchical privilege, religion, and the Molthuni question at a guess). Some sop to keep the radicals busy without giving them any real influence, and no place at all for the rabble. She's betting that none of the delegates will have both the wit or the courage to object. More to the point, she's betting that he won't be able to stop her without looking like he's trying to suppress the voice of the people before the convention's even started. 

Three or four years ago, she'd have been right. Let's see if he's learned anything. 

"Thank you, delegate." he says crisply. At some point he'd been presented with a gavel, but he's never used it. When he talks, the room listens. "The formation committees is one of the more important decisions this convention will undertake. The Duchess of Chelam's proposal is an excellent place to begin our discussion of what those committees should be and how their membership should be decided. I'm sure we all understand how important it is that these things are done fairly." 

"Does the senior delegate from Galt propose any additions to this list? I'm sure I've missed some topics on which there's a great deal of interest, but I worry that if we take on too much we'll end up achieving nothing at all."

"It's hardly my place to suggest changes of any sort. I am opening the subject to the floor for a period of discussion. The other delegates should have at least two days to make their own proposals – given the importance of the subject." 

"With all due respect to the senior delegate from Galt, half of the men who report to me seem fairly convinced that the best way to avoid trouble is to do absolutely nothing that hasn't been explicitly authorized, which means that when I am unavoidably called away to Westcrown nothing gets done. There are bandits in the Ordesa and the day before I was called here they sacked a train of carriages with twenty men. When I last left my home, it was to beg priests in Absalom and Almas to consider resettling, because there's no one to do water and my people are dying of cholera. I was gone three weeks and half my possessions were stolen when I returned.

And I am lucky. I have no children who will go hungry, if this convention is drawn out, because I have no children. I have no elderly mother to look after, as she is dead. You, with the most noble of purposes in mind, dragged people here who have work to do elsewhere. If we spend the opening three days of this event on waiting for people to submit proposals to form committees to make nonbinding recommendations for the Constitution, we will never be done. 

Let's entertain proposals for additional committees for the next hour, and plan to have the committees meet after lunch."

"Forgive me, duchess, but this is a procedural matter, in which I may exercise my own judgement. Of course, since I don't wish to be arbitrary, or keep any of us away from our homes longer than we must, I would prefer to yield to the wishes of the body. Are there proposals?"

"Is there any reason that this must be permanently decided now, when few people in this room have any experience with a gathering like this and a quarter of the delegates are still terrified out of their minds? I propose that, barring substantive objections made now, we form the committees which the Duchess of Chelam has put forward. Forming some committees now will not prevent us from forming more later, if there are neglected topics which need a committee, or dissolving them if there is some cause to do that."

The strix Itarii delegate raises her hand. "Should have committee for kill slaveowners," she says seriously. 

"The wishes of the body," muses the Duchess, "are a complicated thing. I believe that Her Majesty understands Galt to have erred somewhat in their own convention in the killing direction, though I don't know if the senior Galtan delegate agrees, and I believe it it our duty to our nation to learn from Galt's errors and avoid them. But a committee on the status of enslaved peoples in Cheliax seems appropriate."

"As a procedural matter I do not think we will get very far if it is considered licit for delegates to propose murdering one another."

“Either everyone I talk to is wrong or is not called murder when government does it.”

A voice pipes up. "It is not clear to me that the two Committees proposed for government and governance are suitable in their current form. It's certainly not clear to me to which body my proposal should go- that seems substantive enough!"

"Neither conscripting nor inviting a person on the premise that they will then be part of a convention to determine the nature of Cheliax can then Lawfully or reasonably be followed with instead putting them on trial for retroactively capital crimes. It would be perfidious and undermine the ostensible spirit of the entire venture so absolutely that I would expect it to instantly dissolve the credibility of the regime where it is already tentative."

"If they haven't guessed it would soon be a crime in sixteen full months, the more fool them. Very well, have a committee for Slavery and Slaveowners, all the sensible heads have already divested themselves anyway. More importantly, I propose a Committee on Matters of Trade, Imports, Exports, and Internal Travel. That's the blood of the state."

Finally someone talking sense.

"Agreed!"

What the fuck. This is going in unreasonable and unanticipated directions.

This is the most complicated test of her loyalties she has ever experienced in her life. 

"Does Her Majesty perhaps have any questions she has posed this convention which the committees could be selected with the purpose of answering?"

"This body is not empowered to impose retroactive sentences for crimes. Any member who threatens the life or safety of another delegate will be removed. This is a final warning. If you find yourself confused by this distinction, please consult my office at your earliest possible convenience." 

She gives that policy a nod of wholehearted approval. "Young Condesa, what inquiry left you uncertain which committee was appropriate to it?"

(Valia leans over to get clarification from Blai about what 'retroactive' means. Then she's upset. She thought the Archmage was good. Why is he protecting the diabolists?)

This body is not empowered to impose retroactive sentences for crimes, meaning we don't care how badly they hurt people like you. Of course.

"To be clear, are we allowed to decide what the sentences will be for crimes that are happening in the present, or might happen in the future? Even if those sentences could 'threaten the life or safety of another delegate?' I hardly see how we can achieve anything at all, if not."

The King-In-Irons came here expecting blood. The attempted coup by the new nobility, while appropriate and ironic, is not what he came for.

The strix totally is, though, and he'll clap when she makes her proposal. Good for her! He should check if she wants any spells cast. His are burning a hole in his pocket, after all.

Wow! The noblewoman knows a lot. She should see if she can get on some of the committees, assuming they happen.

Good to hear that this youngster has some sense. Never doubted it. That archmage is a man who knows how to handle uppity strix. Bit soft, but, well, that's all to the Good, isn't it?