His eyes scan the other delegates in the room. Monster, barbarian, madwoman, hellknight, monster, caucuses with the madwoman, denounced on the floor this morning, child... Ugh.

"I nominate Archduke Blanxart."

He was going to nominate Ramirez. Oh well. "I accept the nomination."

"I nominate Baron Ramirez." 

Liushna is not comfortable with the idea of a human chair on the non-humans committee.

It's amazing how he just automatically knows without having to painstakingly work it out that this doesn't meant that they are recruiting for an article of furniture.

"Accepted. Any others?"

Nominating Kicharchu would be funny but probably wouldn't accomplish anything, so...no. 

Kicharchu doesn't want to be furniture responsible anyway.

A powerful human noble just walked into the room and announced that two delegates came down with a 'mysterious illness' and aren't even here to say it for themselves. Even though the archmage Naima heals everyone and probably prioritizes delegates, and for that matter Feather could cast remove disease herself if they'd asked her.

And then they asked who should be the new chair, and the other noble in the room immediately nominated them, and now the Committee for Non-Human Rights has two fewer non-humans on it.

Feather really, really wishes she knew what to do about this.

"Shouldn't we have - replacement delegates? To, um, represent their views, or - at least tell the floor we now have fewer people in case someone wants to do that? ...If we need a chair first I nominate Baron Ramirez." Trying to nominate anyone else obviously won't work after Liushna cast her vote.

There's a human noble and the nonhuman who wouldn't go far enough, but he's still a nonhuman. "Ramirez."

You don't tell people the gnomes have been assassinated. You tell them they've taken ill. Even if the people are just halflings. Feather has a lot to learn.

"They only wanted everything to be the same for gnomes. If we are not making things different for gnomes why find more gnomes?"

...OK he's just going to interpret people nominating him two more times as an indication that no other candidates are forthcoming and they should vote.

"It sounds like there are no other nominations for chair? Let's vote on the chair, then, and return to the discussion of gnomish representation after that. I abstain."

"I also abstain."

"I vote for the Archduke!" Because he wanted to know what Kicharchu had to say enough to do magic about it! What a cool guy.

"I vote for the baron." 

Lucia met Ramirez in the cafe, and they're besties now. "I vote for my friend Ramirez!" 

“For the Archduke.”

"And as the vote seems decided. I will abstain." Because he and the Archduke haven't worked out a price and you don't just declare yourself to be someone's loyal man before it makes a difference.

"Very well, it appears that Baron Ramirez is our new chair."

"Thank you. Now, I believe where we left off yesterday we had agreed that Brastlewark in particular should retain its status as a free city within Cheliax, governed by its own laws and practices but still subordinate to the crown; and that similar arrangements may be practical for some races, but not for all. Halflings are dispersed throughout Cheliax and will likely integrate into a new position within human society, rather than forming halfling enclaves. Orcs are more concentrated in the north, but still mixed into communities that are, for the most part, primarily human - and of course half-orc humans exist. Elves are rare but integrated, Dwarves have some of their own settlements but are otherwise mixed with humans, and so on. The strix and the forest people are much more like foreigners, and prefer to stay that way. I think," now that most of the gnomes are gone and their pet issue resolved, "That apart from Brastlewark, the forests, and the strix, we ought to assume a default of integration into human society, and discuss the rights et cetera that nonhumans should have in that context, and then after that address the special cases of dwarven enclaves and anything else of that nature."

"I had brought several proposals of my own, but the chair's statement encompasses most of them," he says. "The one not encompassed was as follows: non-human groups within Chelish territory who desire self-government must possess some authority capable of negotiation with the Crown and of policing offenses by their own kind against the citizens of Cheliax; they may then apply for recognition as a self-governing entity within Cheliax, pending negotiations regarding borders, taxes, and so on. Any non-human group that has not achieved such recognition shall be governed by the ordinary law of Cheliax."

That sounds very difficult, but fortunately now Kicharchu knows how you do that sort of thing: you call a constitutional convention.

"Your Grace," she says to the archduke, "I am afraid that this may make it impossible for nonhuman groups to claim self-government. If the authority tries to police offenses without self-government it will be called a murderer and imprisoner of its own people, and if it doesn't how do you know that it can?"

"I think it would be reasonable to grant self-governing status to some groups on a trial basis, provided that they seem capable of organizing a government at all, and then revoke it if they prove obviously incapable of, or uninterested in, preventing offenses against Chelish citizens." Or, or course, actively involved in those offenses. "In practice, I expect this clause only to be applied to groups that are already de facto self-governing; I just think it better to have a consistent principle than to simply list races that happened to be present at the convention, and so leave some group out who, we later find, obviously ought to have the same arrangement."

"Is the sewer in Chelish territory? Are the drow farther down in Chelish territory? Things below them?"

"That seems like the sort of thing we ought to vote on. I would say that the sewers are and the drow and things below are not—do the sewers of Westcrown actually connect to the Darklands? That seems like a concern in itself."

"They do! We can visit them same as we can visit you. I have heard it said that they like the sewage for growing mushrooms on."

Perhaps they should look into getting that fixed.

Perhaps they should learn to grow mushrooms instead of flushing valuable nutrients!

...actually. "Maybe the kobolds could help keep the humans informed about what's going on below them, and help guide them if they need to go down? As part of their - taxes or whatever." That's being good neighbours, right?

"I am not sure that it is technically within the remit of this committee to determine the borders of Cheliax, but - I call for a vote on whether we will consider the sewers beneath Cheliax, and shallow caves within Chelish territory to be in-scope for our discussions here. Separately, a vote on whether we will consider the darklands out of scope for our discussions here."

"Aye and aye."

"Aye and aye; the first is and the second and is not." This is him politely suggesting to Ramirez that 'yes' is ambiguous and he should have phrased the second one better.

Feather will wait to see how Kicharchu votes and vote the same way.

Does not determining the borders of Cheliax mean they don't know what Cheliax considers its borders to be? She doesn't see how they can discuss the rights of the kobolds in the sewers if they don't know whether they are or are not in Cheliax.

"Abstain, and aye, respectively." 

"Sewers yes drow no. They are doing a separate thing but we are not very doing a thing. Yet!"

"Yes and no. Drow beneath Cheliax pose an obvious threat that must be addressed." 

"The darklands is out of scope and the sewers are in scope," Permira says.

"Yes and no." Kicharchu knows better than her what is best for the kobolds and, presumably, the drow.

"And I vote for the sewers to be in scope and the darklands out of scope. Unanimous, with one abstention, for the sewers being in scope.  Five to three for the darklands being out of scope, if I understand everyone's votes correctly. I do apologize for the ambiguity in the wording of the second question."

Well Regill is definitely judging him for that but it's not as if he had expected not to.