"I have no objections to allowing families to retain their traditions, but is there a reason you wouldn't simply designate Irene as your heir until such time as you have your own offspring?"

"My family tradition is to pass it to legitimate cousins above natural siblings, but I don't think this is a tremendously important issue. If the family line is extinct, the lordship passing to its overlord for judgement seems wholly reasonable."

"I'm just saying, when we write the law, we shouldn't step on existing traditions. Provide an exception in the law for such things."

"I have no objections to such an exception."

Josep has meanwhile been drafting a phrasing for the Hellcoast exception that looks sufficiently innocuous to get past the convention at large, when they bring it there. He doesn't like bastards inheriting, but sometimes they're all that's left of a family. And more importantly, you can't make a deal without paying anything.

"How does this look?"

Owing to ancient customs and tradition, in the Archduchy of the Hellcoast, a claimant to a title may appeal to his overlord and the public opinion to overturn the choice of the previous holder of the title. Such an appeal should be made to a commission appointed by the liege lord, consisting of the lord himself or his representative, and two known and respectable persons from the region, one appointed by each claimant. The commission is then directed to take into account the character, lawfulness, experience, and general fitness of the two candidates, as well as their age, intelligence, sex, and whether they are childless.

"I'm not sure you need to list 'sex' on there. If someone wants to find in favor of the boys every time he can call it a matter of general fitness. And the odds that they're as childless as they might look, maybe."

He crosses out "sex" without arguing about it. They can and will in fact just find in favor of the boys. 

"Hm. You are correct that many men have natural children which should indeed be counted as their progeny when the future of their title is considered. But in my experience, such children are, if not publicly acknowledged, publicly known to be the children of their fathers."

"That's my experience, but different fathers may behave differently."

"Reasonable. What would you recommend as the phrasing, then?"

"Age, intelligence, and prospects for a clear succession going forward," she suggests.

Nod.

"My protest against this method is registered for the record." She doesn't think she can change things but she's not Asmodean.

"Is there a reason we're only doing one archduchy at a time?"

"—well, we want to be sure that the final proposal is one that satisfies all of us. If we're divided, it'll almost certainly be harder for it to pass the convention floor. Delegate Roig knows more than I do about the Hellcoast, so if there are any features of the Hellcoast that need to be given special consideration, I'm willing to listen to him. But if there isn't anything like that for the other archduchies, we don't need to write special rules for each one."

Lucia looks serious. "I should say that there is. I am from Longmarch, and if we have written his rule down, we should write mine!"

"I'm not sure that a procedure based on your sorcerous bloodline would necessarily be suitable for the whole archduchy. We could perhaps note an exception for your county? I expect Delegate Roig would similarly be willing to narrow his proposal. —Though of course, we wouldn't want to appear biased; if we're putting historical exceptions for specific counties into writing, I'd want to ensure we aren't omitting any obvious ones merely because they don't have a representative in this room. It might be simpler to just rely on the procedures we're setting out elsewhere to ensure that your county's traditional method of succession is followed, but I trust your judgment about that versus a county-specific clause."

(That is to say, can we please just get all of us everything we want and not overcomplicate things.)

"Oh, I don't mean our bloodline rules specifically. I am no great legal mind, but it would seem to me that:"

Owing to ancient customs and tradition, in the Archduchy of Longmarch, traditional rules of inheritance for each House is not to be challenged other than in of a full court of all nobles, and in Longmarch the age of inheritance is to be determined by the customs of the ruling House. 

Lucía smiles.  "It might also be the ancient tradition that inheritance is purely a matter of first to be born, with no consideration as to sex, but let's see what we formulate for Cheliax itself before we decide."

Aspexia-Isona will back Lucia up in terms of her body language without saying anything in particular.

He can take a hint. "That seems perfectly reasonable, Condesa. One small addendum — I expect the full convention will have some concerns about the implementation of the 'full court of nobles.' Would it be acceptable to rephrase to 'a full court consisting of a representative of every noble of Count rank or greater'? And did you wish the 'full court of nobles' to refer to nobles in Longmarch, or in all Cheliax? I of course defer to your judgment in both matters."

Lucía bobs her head. "That addendum would suit me, and, yes, I should think all of Cheliax. Traditions are important, in Longmarch."

"I don't think such a council is likely to ever convene again, at least not for a local matter - or they'll decide it should happen again every ten years and it'll become routine, just spaced out."

Lucía shrugs. "Perhaps right now, with the rules today. I would like a senate resembling the full court, to become a regular advisory body to the Queen, every year or two. But this is not the committee for that!"

"Alright. We're getting close to our allotted time, and I know some of you are on other committees, so I'm going to note down what we have so far and we can work out any other details next time we meet. Does that sound good to everyone?"

Having considered the laws and customs of the various regions of Cheliax, and in the interest of promoting order and stability while preventing the offenses of the previous regime, we propose the following:

All matters of succession, inheritance, and similar matters among the nobility shall be decided by the designation of an heir by the person currently in rightful possession of the title and lands in question.

They shall be given discretion over their choice, with the following exceptions: no one shall be allowed to inherit who is possessed of anarchic character, nor who, from the date of adoption of this constitution, engages in manifest worship of any power of the lower planes, recklessly disregards the laws of Cheliax, or suffers from imbecility. 

This committee calls upon those members of the nobility who are currently without clear heir to designate one at their earliest convenience.

In the event that a noble should die without a designated and suitable heir, or that a noble should be found to be in violation of the disqualifying criteria previously outlined, the title shall instead pass first to the legitimate children of the decedent (in the former case) or of the last titleholder before the one so disqualified (in the latter case), then to their natural children, then to the cousins in order of degree of kinship, starting in all cases from the eldest. If the family line is extinct, the heir shall instead be designated by the liege-lord of said person. In respect to the various ancient traditions of our noble houses, dating back to the time of Aroden, which are too diverse to enumerate here, those houses which find this method unsatisfactory may now reaffirm their own traditional methods of succession by consent of all qualified titleholders of that house, which shall supersede the procedures outlined herein save in the matter of disqualifying criteria, to which they may add but not subtract.

Owing to ancient customs and tradition, in the Archduchy of the Hellcoast, a claimant to a title may appeal to his overlord and the public opinion to overturn the choice of the previous holder of the title. Such an appeal should be made to a commission appointed by the liege lord, consisting of the lord himself or his representative, and two known and respectable persons from the region, one appointed by each claimant. The commission is then directed to take into account the character, lawfulness, experience, and general fitness of the two candidates, as well as their age, intelligence, and prospects for a clear succession going forward.

Owing to ancient customs and tradition, in the Archduchy of Longmarch, traditional rules of inheritance for each House is not to be challenged other than in a full court consisting of a representative of every noble of Count rank or greater, and in Longmarch the age of inheritance is to be determined by the customs of the ruling House. 

"I put the part about reaffirming traditional methods of succession so that you don't have a thousand commoners trying to dig up some law that hasn't been used in eight hundred years and say it qualifies them to rule, but I'm willing to rephrase it if you have another suggestion." If they pass a document that's obviously going to start a civil war in every county the convention will probably vote it down. Also, he doesn't want to suddenly find himself fighting a war with Galè's kids.

Yeah Josep can live with this. The problem is going to be getting it past the convention as a whole without them calling bullshit. But that's a problem for tomorrow.

"I have no objections."

"Looks all right to me."