Well, she's managed to attract a Calistrian, which may not bode well on priors however chill he looks at the moment.

If Carlota were designing this convention she'd have gone to even greater lengths to keep out the Calistrians than the quite literal kobolds, but if the man feels strongly that one should take vengeance on bridge trolls it's not as if this gets different results than 'justly and consistently enforce bridge troll laws by burning the bridge troll to ash as soon as possible'. 

She also has a tiefling noble, who looks peaceful at the moment, but one might justifiably have worries about him being on the far opposite end of the lampposts issue.

Séfora didn't have any lamp-posts to hang her Asmodeans, but she didn't let that stop her. But she is here because her peasants want safe roads and safe villages almost as much as they want no taxes and no nobles. She takes a seat quietly, her hood up.

"Your grace," says Aniol, nodding to the duchess on his way in.

Here's the requisite sortitonee.

And a Hellknight of the Chain.

What a...fascinating...collection of people. Plan of attack: bore them all to death.

"I call to order this session of the committee for policy proposing safe roads and safe villages. I have my own topics to introduce before the committee, and other committee members may introduce a topic as well, ideally by presenting each member and the scribe with a written summary of their proposal, though I will make accommodations in cases of illiteracy, impromptu proposals, etcetera." She has copies to hand out of each of hers, though.

"First, I desire that the constitution affirm that Cheliax's roads and rivers should be free of violence, that it is the duty of each lord who has been entrusted with Chelish territory that he maintain the rule of law within his territory and further his duty to ensure that he not permit the escape through his territory of those who have done violence in the territory of his neighbor, and that no person acts wrongly should he, having failed to secure redress for lawlessness in a specific Chelish territory from the lord of those lands, speak or write to that lord's liege to make him aware of the problem yet unredressed, presuming he speaks truthfully and with courtesy, or speaks or writes to the lord of a nearby territory to the same effect.

Second, I desire that the constitution affirm that it is among the duties of any lord hereby designated -" (the ones who can afford it, to a first approximation, though she's happy for there to be a great deal of haggling over who is on the list) "- to have in his possession a means of rapid magical communication with the army, or with a person in the staff of Her Majesty, with which a large scale threat such as that of the Tarrasque, foreign invaders entering through a Teleportation Circle, etcetera could be conveyed at once to those positioned to respond, for example but not limited to a scroll of Sending and a cleric or wizard competent to cast from it, a crystal ball, a pair of linked magical mirrors, a distress signal visible from another location which possesses such, etcetera.

Third, I desire that the constitution affirm that it is among the duties of every lord of Cheliax to, should they having raised an army for more than a single season discharge it, to discharge the soldiers in their own territory and within one week's walk of the location where they were conscripted or hired, and to discharge them with two weeks' pay if they were hired, and that no lord of Cheliax may hire foreign mercenaries in numbers exceeding that of an adventuring party, which is to say six and retainers and staff, without a special dispensation from the Queen, and that in the application for such they shall state their reason to believe they can pay the full length of the contract and that the mercenaries will depart when the contract is over.

Fourth, I desire that the constitution affirm that any lord may oblige his citizenry in militia activities outside the harvest and planting season so as to have a better pool of men from which to recruit for his forces, and so that villages are better empowered in their own defense, but that he may not oblige them in mixed-sex units, nor in labor for his benefit, outside those provisions for conscription laid out elsewhere.

I have more but perhaps we can begin by discussing these."

"Can the Crown afford the crystal balls and replacement of scrolls and whatnot for everybody who'd need to have them?"

"The Crown isn't paying for it, it's obliging those wealthy enough to afford it themselves. I'm sure it won't always be an easy expense but in the last eighteen months there have been two different catastrophic incidents where the difference between a response before dusk and a response a week later is enormous, and many wise men don't think that situation is over. It's a one-off expense, unless the Tarrasque really does come."

"Fair enough, fair enough."

"It's not always clear how to get in a report on the bandits or what have you to the nearest lord, and you can't have every traveler carrying a crystal ball."

"You mean when you don't know for sure whose land you're in? What goes wrong if you ride to the nearest farm and ask?"

"They think I'm a bandit and shoot at me, they know the tax collector's name but not which way the baron's manor is, they look a little like one of the bandits and tell me I'd better move on from there and get wherever I'm headed..."

Well, is he a bandit? she doesn't ask, but she isn't ruling it out either. "How would you like the lord to do things? Build a taller castle so you can't miss it?"

"I'd like the waystations to have maps in them. And for the lords to make sure they're kept up."

"That's very expensive. Worth it, plausibly, but our proposal's going to be very unpopular if it makes it dramatically more expensive to do things other than fight monsters and bandits without directly helping with that."

"They don't have to be very good maps, for this, just enough to get someone passing through to the nearest castle."

"I certainly don't want to have to be the direction-giver for every random stranger who walks by. Sometimes a random stranger is harmless and sometimes he's a bloody Nidalese."

Llei looks up from reading.

"Many of these suggestions are reasonable. Paying for new signaling requirements will be extremely painful, perhaps impossible, given the present currency crisis. At the same time, I see the need. I would like more discussion or suggestion, ideally from wizards, of the cheapest possible ways to achieve this and what level of reliability should be considered sufficient, given that very few sending wizards will work for paper, and very few sending clerics exist, in Cheliax."

"The near-ban on hiring foreign mercenaries - even two adventuring parties at a time, unless I misunderstand - seems too extreme. Perhaps some legal measure is called for to prevent them from routinely devolving into bandits. But as you say, speed of defense is paramount, and the palace may or not be reliable to give leave on a schedule appropriate for the pace of a disaster, when no other forces are available."

"Maybe we can start by requiring the maps in the Heartlands, where I happen to have them, the Duke of Chelam having had a secret mapmaking hobby, and if it's useful enough then we can tell everyone else it's worth the expense of surveying and having copies made in some format where the first storm or first thief won't do them in.

I don't know how impossible to expect signaling to be. Worldwound forts manage this; it may be possible once they no longer need their scrolls to reappropriate them domestically."

"The army that maintained the northern worldwound forts was aided by a government effort to conscript every child of sufficient intelligence into wizard education, leave them in massive debt afterwards, compensate them less than the pay they could command as foreign adventurers, and prevent them from leaving their base or the country so that they could seek employment elsewhere. We have stopped doing many of these things, and many of the wizards we had are gone, or hiding. Scrolls are useless, without spellcasters qualified to use them."

"The Worldwound also had a very large number of fourth-circle clerics, until last year. Now, I am not sure there are any fourth circle clerics in the whole of Menador."

"I think many of the wizards, particularly the ones who were or were on track to get particularly powerful, would fly back home in numbers if we had a way to restore them their souls."

"In the west hills, we have signal fires. We light them when taxmen or bandits come. We have three grandmothers on the high bluff keeping watch. Friend Carlota- I also desire that the constitution affirm "that Cheliax's roads and rivers should be free of violence". But your proposals are a Lord's proposals."

"Do you have a proposal of your own? My scribe can make copies for everyone to review."