Oh, Raimon LIKES her. If they wind up doing the thing where you need someone from each quarter to sit in a committee he wants to tag her for any he's on.

"I recommend" (what is her name - it's on her placard? Great!) "Korva Tallandria for the Committee On Excising The Influence Of Diabolism And Asmodeanism From Our Country!" Sometimes you need to see which way the wind is blowing and take a chance. "Because we need someone to speak for the people being rooted among."

What in Iomedae's name is Joan-Pau playing at -

- Ah. "Chaotic Good." He thinks he sees.

Every thought she has had doubting the strength or will of the sortition delegates feels like idiocy now.  She feels like she did when she realized Eiseth had abandoned her and all of her old assumptions were wrong.  If she is wrong about something as fundamental as the strength in commoners, what else could she be wrong about?

Alexandre will clap at the speech as loudly as any sortition delegate.

That was brilliant. Hopefully it saved that cleric of Erecura, who seems to be among the sensible people in this room.

He claps. "Hear, hear! I second the recommendation that we require at least one person from each quarter to sit on a committee, and I second the recommendation of Ms. Tallandria for the Committee On Excising The Influence Of Diabolism!"

Oh, are we clapping? Clap clap! Old Cheliax probably wasn't even that great, senior delegate snooty duchess!

Theo seconding that motion will not help and so he will not do it, as much as he wants to. He'll do her a favor somehow, even if she turns against him later. Not because she's done him a favor, though she has, but because... because this is the kind of person he wishes was running the world, instead of nobility.

"But she didn't denounce diabolism and Asmodeanism. She just said that since everyone's lives are very hard and Evil tainted all of our hearts no better can be expected of us than the service of Hell's more minor deities. And it is so, that everyone's lives have been very hard and that Evil tainted all of our hearts, and maybe it's even so that those with the fortune to die early don't know what the rest of us endured.

It's not an excuse to serve Evil.

Every one of us compromised with Hell's overseers, yes, and that was a mistake that every one of us made, because it would in fact have been better to die.  A mistake which we have the opportunity to correct, but a mistake we will more than double if we defend it. Evil is Evil, and the only thing that can damn us now is convincing ourselves that it's better to have Evil on our side than to admit we erred in it."

"I feel that it would be prudent to remind this council that, whatever emotions of disgust any one delegate may feel, worship of Erecura is not presently illegal, and therefore not a valid reason to remove any delegate from the convention," a cold voice in very small Hellknight armor says, in conjunction with exactly correct procedure re: how to speak up.

Oh, this is impossible. Korva is right about what the nobles are doing. Theo is right that, whatever the gods picked every lot-chosen peasant for, it’s not going to happen unless someone makes the nobles give up some seats at the table.

But that’s how they get you. The diabolist says that you deserve power and their authority is the only thing that can give it to you. What they say makes sense but, a dozen small compromises later, you’re selling out your brother for a handful of paper and a travel pass. Enric knows better than to trust any speech that gets hooks into him like this; splendor is just another power devils can trade for a soul. 

Aspexia-Isona is really conflicted about this! She wants to wipe out the Asmodeans as much as anyone else, but she heard what was happening in Galt, and she doesn't want that, either. Probably she should speak up to support the Iomedaean? This wasn't really covered in her instructions...

"Trying to move forward from the ashes of Evil is not 'serving Evil'. Recognizing that you have compromised with Evil is not 'serving Evil'. 'It would have been better to die than to serve evil' — maybe it would have! But we cannot build anything new from that foundation! Shall we round up everyone who 'supported' the Infernal regime? Everyone who ever prayed to a power of Hell, even once? Make no mistake, such a purge would not stop until every city is empty and all the souls of Cheliax lie within the Final Blades!"

(Jaume has made it all the way down now, but the spell doesn't last forever, so he's going to wait until there is actually a calm moment in which Theo can make a statement and have whoever needs to hear it hear it.)

"The man in question currently and proudly worships the Queen of Dis! It's to his advantage to act like that's the same as having ever done Evil in the past, but it isn't. He was offered the chance to repent, and he has refused it! You think too little of the Chelish people, if you imagine 'no worshipping the Queen of Dis' will end with every soul in a Final Blade! Most of us stopped worshipping Hell the first minute we had the chance, and most of the rest got around to it in the next year or so!"

"I actually believe that the proselytization for Infernal powers is in fact illegal, under guidance published shortly after the new Queen took power, and that the actions of the delegate representing Hell constitute such under standards used by this government in previous prosecutions - though I have no desire to see anyone prosecuted, and propose that in this case we could productively settle for an agreement by the delegate to proselytize no further for any Infernal powers in this setting unless the convention should vote to relegalize the proselytization for Infernal powers, if we're empowered to do that. Are we, Mr. President?"

"Just because something comes from Hell does not mean we should not hear it. The lady Eritrice, patron of truth and debate, is said to have hailed from Stygia before she moved to Nirvana and established the Windswept Lea. So to was General Vengeance the son of Dispater, and he now commands one of Heaven's legions. Even Lady Shelyn herself still pleads with her fallen brother to return to the light, and if salvation is available for even the Midnight Lord, then surely all the more so can a mortal repent."

Her face hardens. 

"The issue, though, is that the first step of redemption is wanting to change, and he seems proud of what he is and was. What I have heard from Theopho today would have been enough to put him in rare company, even two years ago now, but that's all it is. The least of the old realm's evils should not be mistaken for virtue, any more than grey becomes white when painted alongside black."

If Élie were to rank constitutional conventions he's attended by density of mutual accusations of diabolism, this one would be solidly in the bottom half. He's almost nostalgic. He can't say he enjoys it. He hopes the Duchess is having a good time. 

"The Duchess of Chelam is correct that proselytization for Infernal powers, Evil or not, is forbidden by law. Delegate Lebanel is reminded that he is here in his personal capacity and that the merits of his goddess are not up for debate. 

Delegate Derenge is also correct that the worship of Erecura is presently legal, and therefore not grounds to remove the Delegate Lebanel from the convention. More generally: if such an impediment existed on the part of any delegate, they would not be here. This body was constituted to best represent the interests of the Chelish people, whole and entire, and I'm afraid that until it has completed its work you are all going to be stuck with each other."  

"I suppose that I did cross the line from defending myself into proselytization; that was not my intent and I apologize for it."

Do they actually need him or should he go sit back down.

She hands the Abadaran four silver. "For my estimation of the sobering influence the truth spell provided despite not being cast," she says.

"- thank you, your grace."

"With that resolved, perhaps we ought to return to the matter under discussion before Delegate Lebanel's personal character. As much as I may disagree with his religious convictions, I think his proposal that any committee have at least one member from each section of society has merit. The committees seem likely to do much of the substantial work of the convention; for the same reasons that we are gathered from many classes of people, the committees must be as well. To do otherwise would be a perversion of this entire process."

Korva doesn't know Cansellarion's face, but she knows the name. Cansellarion took Egorian, almost a week after the earthquake. She is undecided on whether she hates him. But she breathes.

... fuck on a stick, now they're going to make her have opinions on how to root out diabolists. She's making everyone else do it, though. Maybe she can come up with an alternative committee tomorrow, as soon as she goes home and figures out what the fuck else she has an opinion on. Or maybe she can manifest some opinions about infrastructure. Or rights. She's like 60% sure she knows what a right is.

This whole thing is infuriating. There's no other word for it. On the one hand, there's that noblewoman, walking around like she owns the place and everyone else should just shut up and have the honor of serving her, condescending to everyone about the neutral gods, acting like whores are somehow equivalent to Hellish gods — and on the other hand there's an avowed diabolist, coming in here to defend a goddess of Hell, trying to use tricks of wording to excuse his actions like he thinks they're idiots who have never met an Asmodean. And somehow being allowed to remain, as if the archmages in charge aren't even bothering to pretend they care about what's right.

She's generally suspicious of Iomedaeans — maybe it was possible to be both Lawful and Good in Lastwall, if you're ignoring Cheliax the way they ignored it for the last century, but not here — but the Iomedaean woman is one of the only people here speaking sense, or something halfway close to it, her and the man who called to expel him, even if the idea that someone can simply repent of years in the service of a god of Hell is ridiculous. (How many people burned, because of him?)

When Delegate Tallandria starts talking about her sister, a part of Victòria — cracks. Because that could have been her, would have been her if she were braver, if she had known more about what Calistria stood for — but she wasn't brave like that. She let wrongs pass years unavenged, even knowing it was wrong, because she wasn't brave like that. But—

Tallandria is probably right that the noblewoman means this as a trick to silence anyone who would dare to stand up to the nobility. But that doesn't mean they should be allowing someone who openly advocates on behalf of a power of Hell to just— be treated like that's okay. Bad enough that men like him still walk the streets, but handing over the reins of society to them would clearly be worse. 

...She holds up her placard, when someone suggests that the committee for eliminating diabolists and Asmodeans needs someone to speak for the people being rooted among. That's just obviously ridiculous, like putting a bandit on the safe roads committee. But there are probably a dozen people all holding up their placards to speak, and she isn't called on before the archmage in charge sees fit to declare that the diabolist can stay as long as he isn't actively promoting Hell and its gods, and— it's not that she believes that battles like this aren't worth picking, but it's clear the archmage has no interest in letting them do anything about evildoers so long as they follow the (utterly inadequate) rules.

(She supposes that answers the question of whether the archmages in charge are bothering to pretend to care about what's right.)