“Druid say not talking about squirrels. Delegate from Whisperwood listen better.”

"On the archduke's earlier, thoughtful question - the custom in Axis is that people of a thousand forms and guises live in harmony together, all of them equals before the Law. But it is important that, in fact, all of those thousand forms of people obey the law. Any people or group of people who are subjects of Her Majesty, who obey Cheliax's laws, are not monsters, whatever their face, and obviously also any people who are subjects of some foreign government, whatever the status of our relationship with that foreign government, or any people who have requested some more esoteric arbitration process by which their disputes with the Chelish shall be settled. 

 But the creatures which stalk my people from the forests in my territory - the ettercaps, the boggarts, the aurumvorax, the deinotherium, the hags, the werebears - neither acknowledge any law or process of ours, nor the authority of any other organization I could appeal to for redress or arbitration, and so the proper and only - if tragic - resort of the Chelish government is to put them to death when they are found in our lands, and to do otherwise is to condemn our own people to destruction. 

I think by this line of argument some bandits are also technically monsters, which I don't particularly mind as an implication, and which will perhaps assuage the worries of the delegate from the Ravounel Forest that it is animus towards nonhumans, rather than animus towards everyone who kills my people, that motivates the descriptor."

Is that the Iomedaen way to say 'fuck you, we'll keep burning the forests'?

Feather isn't very strong on Law so she's very glad someone who knows about Axis agrees with her! When you care about Law, everyone is equal - equally people. And when you care about Good, then you care about all people. 

"Defending yourself and others is of course Lawful and Good! And when humans come into the forest and kill treants, the forest people defend them. So it would be more Good, and I think from what you said more Lawful too, to try to stop it on both sides, like the foreign governments. That Cheliax is not at war with. Realistically not everyone in all the forests will or can agree but if some parts can do it that is probably better than not."

"I think that, if what you just said is agreed, there is no need to debate the rights of nonhumans. Because all people who choose to live by the law would have equal rights. I guess you would keep debating who counts as people, but if you agree anyone who can talk should count, that is already much better than just humans. Not everyone is or can be Lawful by your laws, but people who want to should have the opportunity."

"Indeed. I propose the Committee On Nonhumans should design a procedure for consideration for the committee to permit nonhumans capable of communication presently believed to be monsters to appeal to the state for recognition as full citizens under the law." Which they won't use because they are mostly actually monsters, but it'll placate the druid and so get them more Plant Growth spells.

"I strongly support classifying bandits and also pirates as monsters- I have heard it said they were once known as the common enemy of mankind, and this has certainly proven to be the case! But I have seen a strange beast off a ship, who was fully law abiding, and paid their taxes. If we could now tax Dragons and the wealthy beasts of the caves below? Why that would be a benefit to the nation!"

She is glad that some people here are focused on the very simple 'appease druids, get plant growth' diplomacy that Cheliax has been neglecting for the last seventy years. "I would be delighted to see such a procedure explored, and relations with the druids improved."

"I have always been of the belief that those peoples that either cannot or do not wish to integrate into human society ought to be entitled to reasonable self-government. But if the civilized peoples of Cheliax were to account the forest as a foreign power, it would be as one that commits acts and provocations of war against us on a nearly constant basis. I know that the delegate from Ravounel Forest is not responsible for these provocations—that in all likelihood she deplores them—but I ask her to take this message back to her people: you must set your own house in order before you may hope for peace."

“Make war against Asmodeus good.”

Well, all this is getting entirely out of hand and none of King Drum's plants are remotely useful!

King Drum rapidly revises his plan from "boring committee that gives Brastlewark its ancient privileges" to "extremely interesting committee concerned with forest diplomacy that incidentally sneaks in some language about Brastlewark when everyone is too tired to object."

"The provocations did not cease when Asmodean rule did, though it is possible there is a misunderstanding and we would of course be honored to meet with the druids of the forests and determine if there are assurances we can offer them for renewed diplomatic relations." Honestly Carlota has half a mind to go dig up some obscure god that offers Plant Growth and institute a major church of it in Chelam. Erastil's nice to have but he doesn't have enough coverage. With two gods she could tell the druids she doesn't need them.

"I also support Count Ardiaca's proposal. We are entirely capable of treating with and allying with the druids of the forests and their less-humanoid allies when we have interests in common, as I believe my order has done with the delegate for the Whisperwood. It is" mostly  "when no lawful negotiation is possible to deal with conflicting interests that we have fought."

There is a lot of chaos going on but everyone seems to agree that the committee on nonhumans should exist, which is good, because it means he's not going to have to filibuster.* It would have been really humiliating to have to filibuster.

*Traditional Brastlewark legal tactic when the town meeting isn't going your way, in which you recite your favorite book until your opponents get bored and wander off.

"I concur with the Duchess. Nor were they absent when the Infernal Empire was only a glint in Asmodeus' eye."

"Brastlewark has a long and ancient tradition of"-- complete independence-- "peacefully being ruled by Cheliax while a majority-nonhuman polity that continues to practice its traditional ways. I believe with the help of the Brastlewark gnomes we could create similar traditions of peaceful coexistence with other nonhuman polities. Potentially even those dwelling in the forests."

There. See? Brastlewark is nice and functional and everything should stay exactly as it is except maybe with lower taxes. 

"The humans of Cheliax often attack Ravounel forest. They try to cut it down and kill anyone who tries to stop them. Or they go in as if hunting and then start killing animals and leaving their bodies unused, or sometimes - I think adventurers just go in looking for someone to kill. We work hard to stop them - the druids, and many other people of many races who all work together. Even if we wanted to also stop other, uh, 'creatures' from the forest from going outside and killing humans, we can't do both, and also they help frighten some of the outside humans away, or they kill them on their way in."

"We've been fighting Asmodeus all our lives, but it wasn't because we are Good and wanted to help you, it was because Asmodeus - or the Chelish humans under Asmodeus - kept attacking us. And under Aroden before that too, as far as I've heard. But that doesn't mean we can't do better today."

"Because - it's not that we, most of us, want to attack you. But there's a war and you can't fix that by asking just one side to - stop."

“If war exists, can make peace. If say, ‘only acceptable if other stop fighting first, let us do whatever want,’ sound like Asmodeus in fancy hat.”

Placard placard. "Can we divert this conversation to a committee on the forests, or is it covered already by another proposed committee? Rather than having it out on the floor with everyone."

"Should the committee on the forests be different from the non-human committee?"

"I think it should perhaps be separate, both as it threatens to overwhelm the other conversations about nonhumans and as I think the important constraints are quite different." She starts writing a signup for a forests committee.

The problem with Feather's position is that, in fact, trees aren't people, and farmers who need to expand their farms so their second sons don't starve are, and the needs of people outweigh the needs of things that aren't. If a tiny minority of druids would like everyone else to go hungry to satisfy their weird and obscure moral opinion, they can pay the loggers rather than attack them.

He doesn't say this. It wouldn't help, at this point.

"I concur with the Fiducia. We are indeed digressing into matters better discussed in the committee itself."

Fantastic. Forest discourse off somewhere where it won't affect his boring, boring nonhumans committee.

She posts the signups for both of the new committees. Joins the one for forests; it is relevant to her job.