Oh good. Most people here are actually being pretty reasonable, she was worried after the way this morning went.

"That sounds like a good place to start, but I'm still worried about keeping it going, given just how many nobles there are in Cheliax, and I think we might have some trouble funding it, after a while? I think clerics of Iomedae here are pretty busy and so we might need to hire clerics of other gods from other countries." Please someone else make the obvious suggestion...

"Some of them in that room are evil, you mark my words. There's one with devil blood sitting with them, you know."

Korva has met a lot of five year olds and is really pretty sure they don't only do things that make them freer, but this is probably not the most important argument to have, here.

"If this were a free committee of the Chelish people I'd propose we work hard these next few days to find all the Evil people at the convention, and then propose their expulsion. But this isn't a free committee of the Chelish people, so I think the most we can do is read the names and encourage other convention members to be mindful of them while deciding whose counsel to take...

....we should start by checking ourselves. I don't think Iomedae can take an evil person as a priest but I have nothing to fear and anyone with the means to check may."

Oh good, a question with an obvious solution.

"We can fund it by seizing the property of diabolists. Though we'd have to be careful that people don't hijack it to go after whoever they don't like, since the lure of money is a strong temptation towards evil - putting a cleric or paladin in charge of it would be ideal, but we don't have enough of those spare for all the agents to be clerics. It won't be an issue here at the convention when we're all keeping an eye on it but we could start bad habits if we aren't careful."

Victory!

Yeah, he thinks most of this room is Evil.

"Oh, that's perfect. You'd just need to have seized money not go directly to the people who seized it, but to Iomedae's church to be distributed by a paladin. The part where the money goes out is the step where you need an incorruptible person."

"As long as we have a way to keep people from skimming off the top, at least. Regular truth spells of agents, perhaps, since we already need a lot of those for the searches?"

"Regular Evil checks of agents, which will cover whether they are thieves and liars as well as whether they are otherwise betraying their duties to the benefit of the forces of Evil. I guess also a truth spell in case stealing from the Good churches for personal benefit isn't Evil enough to make you Evil all by itself."

"I'm afraid I haven't asked for the spell today, Delegate Wain. I can ask tomorrow, but only for three people, if they're not strong enough that the evil can be detected easily, and you'll need to find some way of telling what they saw. A powerful evil is much easier to see, though. I can check the whole assembly for those tomorrow, if no one can do it easily today."

"Someone who is good enough at rooting out diabolists might be able to get away with a good bit of theft and only end up chaotic neutral, and while that's obviously better than letting them go free it's still not ideal. Still, I'm confident it's a solvable problem. As for the detecting... I don't have detect evil myself, not that we need it with paladins around, but I can at least check for any fiends or clerics thereof."

"I can detect evil like a paladin for long enough to study a hundred people, if not six hundred. But clever evildoers have a way to hide it." There were a few of those in Pezzack, Asmodean priests who tried concealing their evil. "But the Pharasmin spell is rarer, I think, and many of those who would want to hide their evil won't know what to guard against."

She gestures around the religious contingent. "If we all ask for Detect Evil tomorrow, I think we should be able to cover the entire conference between us, though of course that will only catch powerful evildoers— but we were focusing on those first anyways." 

Victòria is very confident that she's Chaotic Good and therefore has nothing to hide.

He's going to prepare so many Enchantment Foil spells tomorrow. (He has one up right now, but only one.)

"I want to do it today if we can, so there's no time for word to leak and evildoers to escape or conceal themselves. Are there any others in the Pharasmin contingent who may have prepared that spell of yours this morning? Are there any other gods that grant something similar?"

"A paladin's smite should work, if we have someone with protection from arrows to cast it on them. If they're not protected, they're evil, and an evil person can't protect themselves even if they have spells of their own."

"I've been fretting over the pregnant sortition girl - the obvious one, at any rate, they may've caught more - and I'm prepped for her, not for detecting, but I can see about it in the morning."

"Shooting arrows at everyone seems a bit much, you're liable to kill someone on the floor by accident that way."

"I've never heard of another god with it, but I haven't had much occasion to speak to clerics of other gods before now. It's a harder spell, I did a bit of ghost hunting before the Lady of Graves saw fit to give it to me. But you'll only catch a handful of the lesser evils unaware, even if you could surprise them. I'd be shocked if no one prepared to detect evil for the big ones this morning, though. That's only a question of asking around."

The war for Pezzack didn't have paladins. Just Valia, and another priest of Iomedae who died in the fighting. "It'd have to be the paladin shooting the arrows, right. We could set up a room for it...That's not enough by itself either but five tricks like that and we'll be set - and even if evildoers know to prepare they won't know which test we're going to run on them, so they will have to try preparing for everything -"

She does spare a smile for Ester. You can't stop caring about people just because you've got to be ready to let them die rather than compromise with the forces of Hell. "I can ask the priests at my church if one can be nearby for the pregnant girl, should she need anything while you've prepared your spells for our cause."

"I'm sure that's all well and good if she needs a channel but she looks like the sort of person who'd be prone to breech."

On the occasion Valia had to deliver a baby who wasn't cooperating she did it with a knife and a channel. She does not really want to say this proudly to someone qualified to do better than that, though. She nods solemnly. "Then it's good you're here. ...I haven't tried asking Iomedae for other, rarer spells to detect evildoers. I don't know that there isn't one."

—she has an idea, belatedly. Possibly belatedly enough that it won't work, against an evildoer who's even a bit clever, but if it roots out an incompetent evildoer that's still one less evildoer.

"—You're right, I didn't think about the risk of delaying. Calistrians get a spell for frightening evildoers, and I do have it today, but anyone who can fool a truthspell" which is apparently a thing people can do?? "might be able to get away with just pretending they weren't affected. But it still might be worth trying, now, in case anyone didn't have a chance to prepare. Only on the people in this room, it won't last long enough to check the entire convention."

She looks around the room to see if anyone suddenly looks nervous.

He's pretty sure at least half the people in this room won't like the results of a convention-wide alignment check, or else are confident in their ability to defeat it. But people are angry, he reminds himself, about evil done to them on a scale he has no experience with, and he probably cannot stop them from proposing bloody vengeance. He can, however, ensure that the Queen, and probably also the Archmage Cotonnet, throw this committee's report out as soon as they read it.

"I propose that, whatever the Galtan's opinion on who may be present at the convention, the supreme law of Cheliax ought to state that no Evil person may hold any title or office in the empire, including the Crown itself. However, several of the other delegates are correct that almost any spell that detects Evil can be fooled by a sufficiently powerful person. Therefore, I further propose that for the most important office of all—that of the monarch herself—the result be checked by a Commune with Iomedae, whom no mortal can confound."