'You can hardly make things worse.' What a way to open the convention. Not that it isn't true, just that it's hardly inspiring. Perhaps nothing short of sorcery could inspire this crowd, though.

She stands. There is no crown visible on her head, no scepter in her hand; She intends to speak as one citizen to many, not as a queen to her subjects. It's a lie, of course, but the whole purpose of this convention is to make that lie into a partial truth. Citizen-Queen. Opening the convention with the aspirational lie is a way to drag it slightly closer to achieving that goal.

"Citizens of Cheliax. We - I - will not speak long, for it is not my place to guide this convention. I wish only to thank you for gathering here today, to begin the work of rebuilding the nation that Hell tried so hard to destroy, and to lend your voices so that the new higher law may take due account of the rights and needs of each person. I do not expect the process which we are starting here today to progress smoothly and evenly always in one direction. There are nearly six-hundred souls in this room. Nearly six-hundred perspectives on what our nation needs. It will be a great work, to balance all those perspectives, to balance all the values we may some day hold sacred together, liberty with justice with security with compassion. It is going to be messy. Good luck."

"Now, I invite you all to a moment of silent prayer, to whichever righteous god or gods you prefer, asking them for their blessings of wisdom and guidance in writing a constitution which will prove just and beneficial to all Chelaxians."

Alfirin, of course, does not pray, but she does close her eyes and lower her head and clasp her hands for a minute and send a thought to the closest thing to a higher power she imagines might actually guide this convention to success. It's all yours now, Élie. Don´t make a hash of it.

What business is it of these people when he prays and what he asks for? It's not that he doesn't pray, and it's not that he doesn't often appreciate getting wisdom and guidance out of it, but that seems like a matter for him to work out with Erastil, not for strangers to schedule. He isn't going to say anything about it, but he's going to close his eyes and ask Erastil for nice weather back home and a good husband for his second-youngest daughter, just on general principle.

Kicharchu's ability to speak Taldane has improved in leaps and bounds over the last little while. It turns out it helps a lot when people will (occasionally and grudgingly) speak to you instead of just in places where you happen to be able to listen. So they were able to follow almost all of that! But they don't have a god picked out, not even one. None of the ones they have heard of seem to be a god of kobolds. However, if it is part of the Great Work of Everybody Talking About Everything for some of the Everybody to be gods, Kicharchu will help talk to them.

Hellopardonme gods. Please do that thing she said. I can't read yet so you will have to tell me outloud if you give me advice.

Holy Abadar, Master of the First Vault, I pray that our work here will take a place of honor in Your library, crafted with the sincerity and the care necessary to see it through and then followed through; that the veil of Evil will be lifted by our efforts and those of the ordinary people of Cheliax such that it is no longer harmful to the soul to cross these borders; that I can earn the retainer I have been paid already and will be going forward with my honest efforts toward this strange manifestation of the sacred urge toward city-building.

Joan-Pau Ardiaca is one of the first to arrive. He claps at the first speech, and is one of the only to do so.

And he bends his neck in silent prayer. Saints of Aroden,  Sarnax the Shrewd, Doliu Stancos lord of my father, Taldaris the Founder,* Milani who steered my hand and Iomedae the Inheritor, chief of all - help us who wish to prop His legacy up on firmer foundations. Don't let our plans crash down into the depths of despair, but build them up high as a mountaintop. Let us build a worthy monument to Aroden, that men can say it was His hand that raised us up; let us drive the works of Asmodeus into a dirt, so that all can say, 'his chains were weak as feathers, that we shrug them off in an instant to rise again, stronger than ever before.)

(*He doesn't actually believe it, but Arodenites have been including the aspirational tag for millennia and he's not going to ditch it.)

Dear Chaldira,

Please kill all the owners and masters.

Dear Milani,

Please kill all the owners and masters.

Dear Thalmir Gixx, 

Please kill all the owners and masters...

Sarenrae, Goddess of Mercy, Flower of Dawn, chastise our arrogance and mend our ways. Our power has been cast low, now by Your great mercy spare us the just punishment, so that we may bow low and honor Your greatness. Long have we been slaves to Asmodeus and all that is good in us has been burned away by the fire, but send Your servants to scrape up the last of our life Still our tongues when they speak of pride, still our hands when they strike our kinsmen down to lay them under tyranny. Let every priest of Asmodeus rend his raiments in horror of his sins and turn to You and pray. O great Dawnflower, share with all the world the vision You have given me.

And save us all. Oh, Dawnflower, save us all.

Abadar, if I am not in a prayer-proof box and beyond Your help, I would like the opportunity to start over. I hope the fact that I am planning to do that significantly by giving away money does not offend You. If it helps, I would still absolutely be getting something out of it, and would be getting less out of it if I just bought things from people who were interested in selling them to me. I wonder if that's why You're neutral. Anyway, again if I am not in a prayer-proof box, I would like this silly thing to turn out better than it has any right to.

Morituri te salutamus, bastards. 

Pharasma, mother of mothers and lady of graves, accept those souls that perish here.

I suspect all this nonsense is beneath Your notice and have no wish to trouble You with it. It'll get wherever it's going. But look out for that pregnant girl in the third row in the sortition seats. She's about to pop and I don't know if she's got people with her as know where to go. It'd probably be best if she set about laboring toward the end of one of these sessions so there's no question of her having leave to go or being able to find one of Yours to deal with it.

PLEASE BLOW THE ROOF OFF

Iomedae, Queen of Heaven, Lady of Light, your humble and unworthy servant offers up her obedience to you this evening — er, afternoon — as every evening. Show me your will, that I might become your instrument in this world and the next. Purify me of weakness that I might one day become worthy of serving you. Through your discipline your will is made known and our souls are laid bare before you.

...and Erastil, if I can survive this and see my family again, that would be nice.

I don't actually feel like I need anything from You right now.  I've been pretty lucky.  But I bet there's somebody in here who needs you.  Somebody kidnapped at the worst possible time to sit over there and pretend they understand what's going on.  Somebody whose heinous baron still sits in his fancy chair and might never be replaced.  Somebody who sent a name in for those now-illegal pamphlets and saw them pulled from the view of anyone who could have helped them.  So Calistria, if it's my job to do Your job, point me to whichever one I'll do best with, and then the next one, and then the next one, and fend off the authorities who think their arrival's wiped the slate clean.

The Queen is to be obeyed instantly and without question, but certain people (who awoke well before dawn in order to stand as close to the front as possible without offending any archdukes) may have been embarrassingly slow in choosing a righteous god or gods to prefer. Well, now it's a royal command.

Iomedae, she supposes.

Righteous Iomedae, grant me wisdom in matters of justice and law, and guidance in the absence of Hell's devils who guided me, that Her Majesty's will be done.

Forcibly restraining herself from praying to Iomedae that devil summoning be legalized, even just a little, which is not what the Queen commanded.

She's not sure why she's shivering. Absurdly, she worries that Iomedae noticed the prayer and is freezing her in a block of ice.

Shelyn, I don't see a place here for love or for beauty.  Maybe someone likes the gilded angels but I think they're a bit much.  Maybe some noble is trying to matchmake his daughter with the count next to them but that's not really about love, is it.  If there's anything You want done with this please let me know, because otherwise I'm just going to have to act in my own person, or more likely some character I construct who isn't suffering very badly from having to wake up early, and that might be fine but if it isn't I need a hint.

Iomedae, if you're listening, I want to go down in history, but in a good way, not a bad way, so it would be very good of you to line up some ways for me to do that because it's kind of a mess here and I'm not too likely to find them just by looking around.

Thamir, thank you for keeping Spinner, Weft, and Twist, I mean Jordi, behaving themselves, and help me keep up with all these things that are happening and help me be in the right places at the right times.

Iomedae, I am not completely clear on the mechanics of prayer, whether it distracts You or supports You or somehow does both. It is generally encouraged in every religion I have heard of, but I think that might be because of the effect on the worshiper and not because it assists You in identifying or solving any problems. But if there is some wisdom or guidance that would be best placed here, I will do my best with it, and if there isn't, I will do my best without it, amen.

Iomedae,

I think you would probably kill me if you had the chance. But I think you would probably kill Asmodeus, too, and you still worked with him to hold back the Worldwound. People say you're the goddess of defeating evil — well, my older brother is definitely evil, he's lawless and savage and willing to betray his own family to get ahead, so when you think about it it would be good for you to help me take back my inheritance from him. I'm not a paladin, I couldn't be a paladin if I tried, but I'm better than him. I will build a grand temple in your honor if I succeed here, or a fort, or whatever you would like, just please, help me win.

And I don't know if you would consider my little brother a heretic, but please don't be too harsh on him.

Alright, Calistria, it's time to make those bastards pay.

Xavi hasn't yet heard anything he believes about any righteous god. They're meant to like... Iomedae best, right? So. Great Iomedae we ask you for your blessings of wisdom and - guidance, in writing a constitution to be... right and beneficial to Cheliax.

He claps. There are few others, but after months in Cheliax he can't say he's surprised. He did not truly understand how bad things were, before he arrived.

Desna, I hope you smile upon our fortunes today. We'll need it, if we're to build something worthwhile from this mess. I hope enough of the delegates can be persuaded to the merits of freedom and common decency.

Prayer is an affront to the dignity of Gnome. 

King Drum Thornfiddle runs through every god he has heard of praying for the safety and prosperity of Brastlewark, like kings are supposed to do. He is slightly put out that he didn't get to lead a benediction. He would have done a very good job. 

Cayden Cailean, uh, hi! It's kind of weird to pray to you! I have no idea what I'm doing. I guess you knew that and are fine with it because you could have picked someone else. Please make me a flawless instrument of your will on Golarion. May I surrender myself completely and unreservedly in every area of my life. I want to fully trust in you and relinquish my desires for yours. Thank you.