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Many of the recent private writings and royal proclamations being distributed in this city speak of 'Citizens'. This concept is new to most of the people of Westcrown, because the diabolists did not have citizens. Being something of an expert Myself, I have written this pamphlet to inform the people of Westcrown about what a 'Citizen' or 'Citizenship' means. I will be explaining in the following format: First, on a new line, I will write a question, which I imagine to be in the minds of my readers, or which many friends have thought to ask me. I will preface this line with 'Q: ' to note that it is a question. Then, on the next line or many lines, I will write my answer to that question, prefaced with 'A:' to mark it likewise. In this manner, any questions that my readers may have will already be answered on the page, and you need only find where they are asked to read the answers.
Q: What is a citizen?
A: A citizen is a free man, (or woman!) who lives within the bounds of Cheliax. (Or some other Nation, such as Galt or Andoran, but henceforth here I will speak only of Chelish Citizens, i.e. Citizens who live in Cheliax.) Citizens have certain Rights, which are granted to them by the queen. These Rights include the Freedom of the Pen, which is the Right to produce any written material, the Right to worship any good god, the Right to own property. More Rights may be granted by the queen in the future. Part of the purpose of the great Convention is to advise the queen on which Rights to give to her Citizens. Any Citizen who does a thing which is their Right will not be punished by the queen for doing that thing.Q: What about gods which are neither Good nor Evil? Do Citizens have the Right to worship them?
A: No.Q: What about Abadar? I have seen many temples to Abadar, and none of the priests being punished.
A: Citizens are separately granted the Right to worship Abadar, if they please, because the queen is a good friend to the Pharaoh of Osirion, Shawil, who is now also the Count of Egorian. In Osirion they worship only Abadar, so as a favor to her friend the Pharaoh the Queen permitted all Citizens to worship Abadar as well.Q: What is citizenship?
A: Citizenship is the position or status of being a Citizen.Q: You said that a Citizen is a Citizen of a particular Nation? What is a 'Nation'?
A: A Nation is any kingdom which has Citizens.Q: Be that not every Kingdom? Every Kingdom has free men.
A: No, because Citizens also have Rights, and the free men in other kingdoms do not have Rights.Q: Are Diabolists citizens?
A: No. Diabolists are not Citizens. To be a Citizen one must be both Lawful and Good. Diabolists are Lawful but not Good.Q: Are 'slips' citizens?
A: First, I beg you to avoid the use of that vile word, which denigrates the people to which it refers. You should instead call them 'halflings' or 'smallfolk' or 'short people'. Second, no, they are not citizens. Halflings are slaves, and Citizens must be free.Q: What about tieflings?
A: No, tieflings are not humans. To be a Citizen one must be human.Q: What about elves?
A: Elves are not humans, and are not Citizens. However, they may become Citizens by special dispensation from the Crown.Q: A person who grew old, and petitioned the Archmage Naima Cotonnet to make them young again, and now are young but also become an orc, or a bugbear, or some other inhuman creature - Is that person a Citizen?
A: If they were a Citizen before, a Citizen they remain. The privilege of Citizenship is not granted according to skin or blood or bone, but soul alone, and a human made by magic into an orc retains their human soul.Q: How did you become so wise as to the ways of Citizenship?
A: I have read many writings by Galtans, who invented Citizenship, and spoken to many Galtans. In this way I learned the nature of Citizenship from the same masters who so instructed our queen.Q: Are there any obligations that Citizens have, or do they only have Rights?
A: Citizens have all the same obligations as any other subject of the Crown. They differ from other free men and women only in their Rights.Q: You say that the queen may grant more Rights. Can the queen revoke the rights that she has already granted?
A: The queen may revoke rights granted to Citizens only after one hundred years have passed since the granting. However, if five hundred years pass since the granting without the rights being revoked, they then become Inalienable and may never be revoked again, lest the queen (or king) inspire the wrath of the Good and Just gods.
To all my fellow Citizens of Cheliax, I offer an Addendum to my Previous Publication. I expect you to be familiar already with my Queer Mode of Writing and so I will not Explain it Again.
Q: Are you not a damned fool who knows nothing of Citizenship?
A: Damned fool though I be, I am wizer than you. I have the cunning to read One or Two Galtan Tomes of no great length and call Myself an expert.Q: Is it truly so that the greater part of the people of Cheliax are not Citizens?
A: Yes it is Truly So for I am the Only Expert on what is a Citizen. I alone understand this, better than any born in Galt, better even than our Queen or the Archmage Cotonnet.Q: Are Citizens truly without any obligation to the Nation?
A: Yes, for I say I am a Citizen, and I think it would be Rather Nice to live in Indolence and Sloth.O(bservation): You are such a Kind and Compassionate person, for the Great Care which you Take with the Words that you use to speak of our Smaller Brethren
E(xplanation): Yes I am the Kindest person in this city and have great Compassion for those who are Lesser Than MeM: Surely in your great Kindness you have done some service for those Halflings? Tell us of the Slaves You Have Freed From Bondage.
Z: I have done No Such Thing. Kindness consists only in the use of the right Words and Forms.R: Where did you Learn Such Kindness, then?
V: At the Altar of Dispater, the Kindest of the fiends in Hell.I: Does that not make you a Diabolist?
L: No, I have Rejected Thoroughly the Diabolical Influence of my Master. I am Reformed now and a Citizen. Let No-body Doubt this.
A public letter to my fellow Citizens and also to Her Majesty the Queen,
I write to you all as the author of an instructional pamphlet entitled "Citizenship and You: A helpful guide for new Citizens as to the nature of their status and the Rights so accorded." Though I wrote only with your best interests, and the best interests of the Nation in my heart, I have since that time and for no other cause been vilely slandered. Some person, I know not who, has written another pamphlet, which they crudely attempt to pass off as my own hand, entitled "To all my fellow Citizens of Cheliax, I offer an Addendum to my Previous Publication." Therein he makes a mockery of the helpful formatting which I devised to make clear my explanations, in which I mark questions commonly raised with a letter 'Q' and answers to those questions with a letter 'A'. Beyond such mockery, he "admits" in my written voice, to being a servant of Dispater, to thinking myself greater than the queen and her archmage companion, and to have concocted the pamphlet solely to justify my own indolence. These all are lies! I beg my fellow Citizens to ignore these lies, and I beg Her Majesty the Queen to find this man who so slanders me and have him arrested and hanged.
Regarding Certain Accusations Made In Public Letters
Q: Is it true that you did not write the pamphlet titled "To all my fellow Citizens of Cheliax, I offer an Addendum to my Previous Publication."
A: No. that is false.Q: But I have seen a letter which purports to be from you, saying that the addendum was written by an impostor.
A: That letter is written by an impostor!Q: How am I to tell you from the impostor?
A: You shall know me by my works. In particular, by my queer habit of writing.Q: Should people who write anonymous pamphlets of a satirical nature be hanged?
A: Only if they are not Citizens. If they are Citizens they have the Freedom of the Pen and must not be hanged for writing any thing.Q: What if you, most esteemed Citizen, are the target of their satire?
A: Then they are no Citizen! No Citizen would ever attack me so.A(ccusation): I have noted that the way you write the letter 's' differs between your first pamphlet and the addendum! I think perhaps you are an impostor after all.
R(efutation): There are many ways to write an 's'. ssssssssss. See them all? Think nothing of it.
Raimon is going to pin this series of pamphlets, letters and responses to his wall next to a stack of less terrible pamphlets on citizenship.
(on Recent Citizenship Pamphlets and Denounciations) We note that this is why the Badger, with its Artistic Heading has established a strong Mark that in the Public Mind stands for Trustworthiness and Sanity, that is Impossible to Mistake, as opposed to Other Shortsighted Authors. The Badger also Notes that All Right-Thinking Readers will Agree that all proposed Definitions of Citizenship includes the Wise and Undying Lady Eriape.
(On this Most Useful new way to Compose a Pamphlet)
Q: Did you know that Any Person can draw a Badger upon a Sheet of Paper?
A: Only with Great Talent and the Wisdom And Practice of Centuries could any Person do that.Q: Who, besides the Wise and Undying Lady Eriape may be Counted among the Ranks of Citizens?
A: As I hath Scribed Many Times Before, Citizenship and Suffrage are Reserved for Unliving Terrors.Q: What is to Become of the Living if they are not Citizens with Rights?
A: They shall be Bred As If Cattle and Devoured by their Betters.Q: What is the Obverse Power you have spoken of before?
A: There is No Such Thing. I Made It Up.Q: Why have you Adopted This Format?
A: Though it cometh from a Servant of Dispater who Lacketh Any Redeeming Quality, the Format is Most Useful for the Instruction of Inferior Mortal Minds by the Necromantically Educated such as the Eternally Judgmental Lady Eriape.
Some Corrections on Citizenship
As One who has Himself been a Citizen
Our anonymous Friend who has read much of Galt and is so Very Fond of the letters Q and A has made a noble attempt to Enlighten us, and his interlocutor the Satirist an ignoble but industrious attempt to Entertain us, and for this we should be grateful to BOTH. Nevertheless, they contain Certain Inaccuracies. As one Born in Cheliax, but for Many Years a Citizen of Rahadoum before my Unexpected Return, please allow me to Issue Corrections:
> Q: Are Diabolists citizens?
> A: No. Diabolists are not Citizens.It is NOT SO. A Diabolist is a Criminal, of a Particularly Pernicious kind, and so FORFEITS MANY RIGHTS. But even a Traitor or a Diabolist is a Citizen. A Citizen may have a RIGHT about HOW HE MAY BE TRIED BEFORE A JUDGE, and the Diabolist has this Right still, until he is KNOWN GUILTY and sent to HELL or the STASIS of the FINAL BLADE.
> To be a Citizen one must be both Lawful and Good.
While we may Desire of all our Citizens that they be Lawful and that they be Good, and while Citizenship Hath DUTIES, one may Fulfill those Duties even while Anarchic, or Evil, or even in principle Both.Rahadoum considers itself a Lawful Nation, but not a Good one; it is Bound By The Laws of Man, and Bound Together By Those Duties, but REJECTING All Gods And Their Judgments, EVEN AND ESPECIALLY PHARASMA'S, Viz. ALIGNMENT. It's Citizens are almost all Lawful, but Not All, and only some Few are reckoned Good. Even the many, though they be a small Proportion, who are both Lawful and Evil are In The Main DUTIFUL CITIZENS of Rahadoum. So long as they CONFORM TO WHAT RAHADOUMI LAW REQUIRES Citizens they remain.
Your humble Interlocutor, indeed, entered Rahadoum as both Lawful and Evil, as many born in Cheliax were at His Age, and yet he swore in a Circle of Truth to abide by its laws and work to its benefit, and he was Affirmed a Citizen. By the Time he completed his Studies he was Evil no longer, but in The Eyes of the State, he was No Better And No Worse.
We may AS CITIZENS choose to Exclude or Exile the Evil, Not Being Rahadoum, but this is Not Necessary; it is a Choice to Improve our State According to Our Desires, and to do Otherwise is Equally a Choice.
> on halflings, tieflings, elves, and those transmogrified by the Lady Archmage
There is Nothing Whatsoever about the status of Citizen which requires Humanity. A halfling who has been Freed From Infernal Bondage is AS GOOD A CITIZEN as Any Human, and Rather a Better One than many humans, some of whom Know Only Exerting Power. A Tiefling, or an Orc, may be More Naturally Anarchic or Evil than a human, and so have DIFFICULTIES with the Duties of Citizenship, but they are As Worthy A Citizen As You if they can abide by them.
Consider also the Dwarves, who are both more Lawful and more Good than in their Tendencies; should we exclude them for the Crime of Being Short? Should we say that because Humans Are Deficient Next To Them, ONLY DWARVES may be citizens? We should not. It is the mind that makes a citizen, not the Gross Mortal Form or the Imperceptible Soul, and ANY ONE who can Freely Serve as a Citizen, then A Citizen He Shall Be.
> Q: Be that not every Kingdom? Every Kingdom has free men.
> A: No, because Citizens also have Rights, and the free men in other kingdoms do not have Rights.
> Are there any obligations that Citizens have, or do they only have Rights?A Citizen is distinguished from a Free Subject in that a State of Citizens is NOT A TYRANNY. A Subject may have Rights so long as the MONARCH Proclaims them; in Osirion, Men (though not Women) have Rights; as an Example, they cannot be Enslaved except by Punishment For Crime or due to Gross Debt. But their King (who foolishly claims to be also a God) may Revoke Those Rights at his Whim, and if not Him, then He Who Succeeds Him.
A Citizen, as reckoned in Rahadoum and in Galt Also, has a VOICE IN HIS GOVERNMENT. As in the Illustrious Convention, they may Assemble in Certian Ways And Places, at Certian Times, to Speak Their Minds and Vote Upon Their Proposals. This may be to select a Town's Mayor, or a Delegate to a Regional Council or a National Convention, or even to Vote a FULL POLL OF THE CITIZENS Upon a New Law, that said Law may be Adopted if the Citizenry Approve of it, or Rejected if they Disapprove.
With this Right, which is the FIRST AND MOST PERMANENT of Citizen Rights, comes the FIRST AND MOST VITAL DUTY, which is to be a Citizen and not a Subject. A Citizen who never Exterts His Right To Voice allows his State to REGRESS TO TYRANNY and render Himself and All His Fellows to ONCE AGAIN FALL TO BE SUBJECTS
Signed this day of the 4714th year of the Starstone Reckoning,
High Watcher Theopho Lebanel, Priest of Erecura, himself Lawful and Not Evil
Let any one who wishes to acquire more wisdom along these lines approach myself, at my temple in the Rego Sacero under the sign of the Circle of Runes. Within I provide honest and private counsel. For the time being, preference will be given to those who are Delegates to the Constitutional Convention, for wholly practical reasons.