Isn't there already a committee on slavery? Why do they need another one?

Aspexia-Isona continues to be blissfully unaware she is under discussion.

There should be a committee on nonhumans, but it's one of those that will both be very tedious and get out of hand swiftly. Ah well. She adds it. "I propose a special rule that the committee on nonhumans should be majority human, to reflect the composition of the convention, but contain a representative of every non-monstrous race if they're interested."

"Disagree majority human. Why humans decide fate non-humans? Not have good track record." Liushna WILL use correct protocol to make this complaint because it is VERY IMPORTANT that the humans not have more reasons than absolutely necessary to dismiss her concern. 

"This proposal is because Cheliax is overwhelmingly human, and this convention is, and so a committee made up mostly of nonhumans will be wildly unrepresentative and likely to make recommendations the broader body shoots down immediately; better to persuade some humans first, as you'll need to eventually."

"I request clarification on the good Duchess's definition of a 'monster'."

"Does the delegate from the strix propose also that the committee on slavery have a majority who are currently slaves? Perhaps the committee on rooting out Asmodean influence should be majority Asmodeans? And any committee on the privileges of the nobility be majority nobles?"

Feather raises her placard... and waits to be called on as other people - who admittedly also raised theirs - rapidly turn the conversation away from what she intended to address. How can anything get done like this?

Still, this is as good a point as any. She's not expecting to really convince them - not the people who are speaking and have strong opinions already - but she might learn to understand them better, from their reactions, and those of the so-far-silent majority of the delegates.

"Most of the people living in the lands of Cheliax are not human," she says firmly. "The delegates in this convention are already not - proportional to the population. So I, too, am afraid that whatever the committee says, the delegates will probably not vote for nonhuman rights. Because they are humans, and they are used to humans ruling over others and making war on them, and it is asking people to be very Good or maybe very Lawful to vote unselfishly."

"I know some of you disagree with me about who should be called people. I think that if you try to make a law about it, you may end up disagreeing who is 'human' too. And yes, I would love for you to define - or clarify - who is a 'monster' because when I asked people earlier, some of the delegates here, they could not give a clear answer!"

"Some people here also said they want to be Good. I came to this convention to appeal to the Good in you. It is Good to treat everyone equally, and to treat everyone well. Humans don't rule everyone else in Nirvana. I don't know about Heaven but if there are delegates here from Heaven or Axis they should tell us."

"If everyone only argues and votes for their own race's interests, then obviously humans have the most votes and will win. There is no point even in debating it then. But if you are trying to be Good, and if -" for reasons she doesn't pretend to understand - "you are trying to make new laws by asking the people who would live under those laws, then you should for your own values care about all people."

"So without waiting for the committee, I ask you right now: who are you here for? What do you really want? To be Good? To have a law for everyone, or a law for humans only? You say you don't follow Asmodeus any longer. The teaching of Asmodeus, as I heard it, was to rule others, in a - pyramid. With humans on top, or maybe devils. What is the new teaching for Cheliax, if it still wants to rule everyone with humans on top? Please think about that, while you wait for the committee."

"Sorry, what do you mean that most people in Cheliax are not human? Strix aren't monsters, they aided Pezzack in rebelling and in any society that rebels at Asmodeanism we see the Chelish spirit, whatever the face. But there aren't many strix. Halflings, too, have the capacity to choose Good and reject Evil, and many of them did, and they should all be freed. There are halflings, but there are more humans. And - the delegates chosen by lot, they're nearly all humans and halflings, like you'd expect if that's what most people are."

Raimon waves his placard a bit. "Based on one such prior conversation with Delegate Feather I am pretty sure she is referring to stuff like birds and squirrels when she says 'most people', I advised then and advise now that the word 'creatures' be used instead when one's meaning is so expansive. If most individuals who can use language without magic in Cheliax aren't human that would admittedly be pretty interesting."

"Birds and squirrels are - just important to be Good to," she doesn't know how to translate any of the terms Oak taught her into Chelish, "but I know most of you disagree and so that's not what I meant."

"Inside of Cheliax there are big forests. I am the only person here today from one of them and I only speak for Ravounel Forest. Am I not 'people' to you? How many people live in all the forests? I don't know numbers, I don't know how many humans there are in numbers either, but the forests are full of people who speak in language. Not just humans, or druids! Two of my best friends are a treant who speaks Sylvan and an owl who is telepathic and also understands spoken Sylvan. There are dozens of races who live in forests and can speak nonmagically."

"There is one kobold here today," she gives a nod to Kicharchu, "that means you admit kobolds are people. How many kobolds live in Cheliax? Do you really think there are so few that just one delegate should represent them, by population size? I'm not familiar with the kobolds outside the forests but I expect where there is one, there are many.

"There are probably other races, because there is life everywhere, even outside the forests." At least she desperately hopes so! "You have not looked, you have not counted, because - you think only humans matter. That's fine if you're not doing anything about nonhumans, if you don't kill them or trade with them. But if you make a law about their rights, you are treating them as - 'citizens'. And it is not Good to give them fewer rights just because they are not humans."

All right, Eulàlia wants on the nonhumans committee, this is going to be hilarious. "I don't really care if the monsters eating my people are people themselves or not. They're not Chelish people. They don't acknowledge the Queen, they don't acknowledge our laws. They're the enemy, if they're people, and we should declare war and burn the forests."

She's right but she shouldn't say it. 

It's hardly a constitutional matter, anyways. The constitution will empower the queen to declare war and she will do so when it is wise to do so.

"They can't acknowledge your laws because your laws say only humans have rights! You have to start by passing better laws, maybe then some of them will want to live by those laws! Otherwise you're - declaring forever war as a matter of law!"

It's not a surprise that some humans are just in favor of war but Feather really hopes some people here will disagree, if she suggests a good reason to do so.

He thinks there's a diplomatic solution that everyone is too busy shouting at for him to try implementing at all.

"The law doesn't say that only humans have rights, you idiot child."

It’s the same idiot noblewoman as earlier who wanted the answers to this loyalty test given to her.  And she apparently missed the fact that Goodness (and Lawfulness) is a part of loyalty under the new regime.  (Fernando is pretty sure killing a bunch of people, even monster people counts as Evil).  Come to think of it, the non-Human committee might be a good fit for Fernando to show his loyalty.  He has met several Gnomes before, talked with one recently, and read a Gnomish treatise on lawful good that discussed the subject abstractly enough it might even apply to monsters! 

"I don't know what your law says. I know how you treat nonhumans. Most halflings are slaves. Someone just said they only know the strix are people because they fought the Asmodeans, would they not be people but 'monsters' if they stayed neutral? You're debating what rights to give nonhumans in the new law, that means you are - you, the humans, have more rights than they do right now, that you can decide it for them. And that is true because you are stronger but it is not Good."

... The elf wearing leaf armor wayyyyy in the back of the nobility section with ten people between him and Feather would like to hold up his placard?

(Eulàlia is completely confident that killing monsters is Good. Recently she had to ride out to a village where a mandragora swarm had decided to settle. Was it intelligent? Intelligent enough to have made sure it took a long time for word to get out, to have attacked passing travellers only if it could consume them all. Was it good to kill it? Absolutely yes.)

"The Whisperwood is full of devils," says Tuimfane Ascathel, Representative of the Whisperwood, holding up his 'Tuimfane Ascathel, Representative of the Whisperwood' placard and waving it at everyone, "there's a catfolk necromancer who's enslaved multiple local villages, the werewolf plague is spreading throughout the entire border and we can't do anything about it because the devils keep attacking everyone and we don't have time, I hear our dragon sent a minion to enslave the entire convention and I've come to your city to tell the archmages that there's a portal to Hell in the Whisperwood so they can fix it and you appear to be arguing about squirrels? Squirrels are even less interesting than humans."

Then he'll sit down again.

"Mr. President, is this convention empowered to move that the honored delegate Cansellarion and yourself and your other allies go fix portals to Hell?"

Wait, was that - Feather didn't quite catch what was written on the elf's placard, but she thinks it said 'Whisperwood'? It must be some human community next to it and named for it, just like they named Ravounel after the forest.

And it totally makes sense that they'd be worried about a portal to Hell in the forest and all that other stuff! Ravounel Forest has Rovagug-worshipping hags in it! Forests have had to tolerate a lot of horrible stuff to be able to fight off the humans! If only they didn't have to fight all the time, maybe the druids could have dealt with the portal!

...wait, did he say 'our dragon'? Do dragons have legal rights - she's not sure even humans could be so stupid as to badly treat a dragon but, uh, they do keep surprising her!

"We are aware of the portal to Hell and have plans to address it" after a long and expensive consultation with their axiomite lawyers.