Oh no, this committee was a spite-nomination. Lluïsa looks around nervouslysedately.

"I don't mean to deny Sefora's extraordinary contributions to the cause," says Joan-Pau, entering and sitting down, "because surely very few of us here have killed Chelish counts, but a few points of procedure, first, we aren't empowered to overthrow the Queen but only to make recommendations to the general convention, second, any proposal we send to the general convention needs to pass the entire convention half of whom - such as myself - were appointed by the Queen, and third, the chair is elected, not self-appointed."

"No man will give you permission to overthrow them. You just do it."

"I have no problem with Sefora being the chair of the Committee for Further Revolution and finding other members of her committee. But we should elect a chair of Alternative Political Arrangements To Monarchy And Ways They May Be Further Studied, the committee I actually joined."

Her eyes meets his, hot but self-controlled. "Perhaps I expected feelings to run hotter, in Cheliax. Did your count have a purpose, then, Friend Gnome? Did the old Queen come to your aid? Did the tax farmers show mercy to your poor? Speak up for them, if you mean to keep them."

"Sefora, Levrolurment is right. If you want to start a rebellion against the Queen, do it somewhere else. We're trying to figure out how to do our jobs better, not start a civil war."

"Delegate Ardiaca, would you accept the Chair's Seat if elected thereto?" asks Lluïsa.

"I'm already chairing the Imperial Committee, but I suppose I can if until we find someone else to fob it off on." Wasn't there supposed to be a fifth person in this room?

"Do your jobs better? What is your job, Arcadia?"

"Well, last year I was committing grand piracy against the Lord Protector of Molthune to lead a rebel army to join the war against Cheliax, and after that I had to defeat bandits, overthrow Asmodeans, defeat a necromancer, stop an orcish invasion, forge an alliance with the local druids so they'd go back to making the crops grow and, the war being over, demobilize my aforementioned army without anyone starving to death and get started arranging local elections so my people could tell me what all the other problems I needed to deal with were."

"- The job title is 'count.' And it's Ar-di-aca, actually."

"So, friend Ardiaca, you joined a committee for the Alternatives to the Monarchy to become a better adventurer, a better lord?"

"I joined it to study what they did in Republican Galt and Rahadoum and Theocratic Lastwall, both of which had people in charge of other people talking to druids and leading armies and making sure necromancers didn't murder and reanimate anyone - whatever their titles were, the work still needed to get done."

"I suppose," says the ever procedurally-minded Lluïsa, "that a Chair cannot be chosen until our requisite Clergy arrive."

She's fairly confident that the gnome and the... whatever that is are not religious delegates, and of course the sensible count is a count.

"Friend Gnome - I don't have your name- what do you see as the meaning of this committee?"

A cleric bursts into the room, slightly out of breath. 

"Sorry, there was an emergency and I had to stop and deal with it, did I miss anything?"

"- Of course. Not much; Sefora would like to start a revolution against the queen and we were trying to explain that that wasn't what the committee was for, and also to decide on a chair. I don't suppose you want the job?"

“—I mean, not especially, but I can probably do it?”

Séfora gazes at her. "I'd like to hear your vision for the committee, Friend Cleric."

“—Uh—do research on things that people do in other countries, see if there’s anything we can copy, wholesale or piecemeal?”

"I've done a small amount of reading, though many foreign practices seem barbaric and ill-suited to a civilized Realm, like that certain land in Garund once the Kingdom of holy Aroden, where each year the King is chosen by Lot, and at the year's end is put to Death, and Eaten by all the People in a great Festival. The practices of Galt, Lastwall, and even Rahadoum I would be interested to discuss more."

"If the folk here want to study, then so be it. I should like to study Sarkoris- perhaps they have learned to do without lords. But this is certainly the only constitutional convention of our lifetimes. There is no other committee who could recommend a change of government. No others have this work. Now we are here."

"Any of us could leave. If we do, the committee fails. Let us study, indeed. But I would like us to agree that we likewise can recommend a change of government. That is our work also." 

"Delegate Levrolurment is also elected. - but as it happens I agree. We can recommend a change of government. But we're here to study alternative political arrangements to monarchy for the good of the Chelish people, and if there's a reason to do that it's to make proposals to the convention that will pass the convention, not to start fights with people who swordfought the tarrasque." 

"Sarkoris, ah, makes do without people, being a colony of the Abyss. Or having been such a colony; I have heard rumors both ways regarding the state of the Wound."

"Delegate Tosta, I would support you as chair."

"I support friend Ardiaca, then, among the ones I have heard speak. He at least accepts that we can make a recommendation. That this is no mere study circle."

“…Obviously the point is to make a recommendation, but we have to have any idea what we’re talking about first? If anyone here has experience to speak from, that’s great, but there are a lot of ways of doing things and not enough people here to have experience with all of them.”