"Overall this proposal seems sensible, but why include the lord of a nearby territory? They would not have standing to intervene, whereas the liege does. If I received a complaint about the Duchess of Chelam, my primary peaceable option would be raising it to our mutual liege, and I would be reluctant to pass on reports I could not verify. Perhaps we should instead specify those orders or churches who may have standing to investigate misbehavior on the part of nobility." In Mendev, it's not your liege's job to investigate claims of hidden demon-worship.

"My expectation is that many people do not know which authorities are legitimately empowered to address a problem, and I would rather protect those people in reports that are ultimately futile than count on successfully communicating all of that. And a neighboring lord can be much easier to reach than the liege. I think we should also protect reports to orders or churches with standing to investigate, though I also think the existing law protects those at least if there is suspicion of a crime."

He nods thanks to Carlota and takes a seat to look through those proposals. What have the radicals been trying here?

Carlota's four are fine, mostly. He doesn't like the limit on mercenaries, there's no reason to take away nobles' right and ability to defend themselves and their lands. In the last one "labor for his benefit" needs to be more tightly construed - he should still be able to gather a workforce for something that benefits all, bridges and roads and the like.

Sefora's are the insanity he expected.

"My subjects, and those of any upright noble, should not need this - but given the times it may be necessary. I understand the difficulty of reaching your lord's liege, but I also would not see this becoming a way for one rival to interfere with his neighbor. Protecting reports to churches in good standing, along with that liege, seems reasonable and wide enough."

"Cheliax is large, as are its archduchies. If, hypothetically, the Marquis de Juncosa's eastern neighbor should fail to deal with a matter of safety, their liege is hundreds of miles away, almost all of the distance over dangerous territory. Even if everyone else acts rightly, reaching the Archduke Narikopolus before many more deaths have occurred may be impossible. Aniol himself would be much better positioned to intervene, simply as a matter of location. If we give people reason to believe that reports of danger can only be safely given to an extremely limited number of people, all of whom may be unreachable, we will simply not receive reports, and peasants will die needlessly."

"I consider getting along with my neighbors to be one of my responsibilities as a marquis. Adding to that relationship dealing with one another's inconveniently placed or timed monsters seems reasonable enough to me."

"I agree with that, and it is what I do in Almenar and with my neighbors. I rather wanted to avoid encouraging people to go to nearby lords over every issue they have with their own lord, beyond monsters and bandits, which seemed to me a recipe for strife between neighbors."

"I think the people of Cheliax more likely to fail to alert their own lords of a problem unless they fear for their lives."

"My order is primarily urban and myself moreso than most, but I believe the Count-Regent's assessment of the behavior of the Chelish commons is generally accurate. Certainly in the old regime they would, for the vast majority of lords, be correct to fear reporting minor problems more than the consequences of those problems."

"My own experience has been that people will repeatedly hesitate to raise to my attention problems which are obviously going to get worse over time - ghouls, say, or a breeding pair of forest beasts - until those problems get bad enough that they are sure they won't survive them. It would do a great deal of good if they were willing to alert me - or their priest, or a neighboring lord, or the mail-carrier, or anyone else - of those problems while they are simple to solve. I have had no experience of problems being raised to my attention that were not extremely serious."

"I'd be happy to pass on complaints - maybe anonymized - from anyone I pass by in my deliveries, sure."

"What does everyone think of this:

It is a service to Her Majesty, to the honorable and noble lords of Cheliax, and to the common good for monsters, bandits, corrupt or incompetent leadership, and other sources of danger to Her Majesty's subjects to be reported to those empowered to investigate and address them. As a consequence of the damage done by Asmodean rule, Her Majesty's subjects hesitate to make even necessary reports, and are ignorant of who those reports are safely addressed to. Much work must be done to foster the bonds of mutual respect and obligation which ought to exist between lords and their subjects, and the protection of the law can serve to foster those bonds.

The right to petition Her Majesty is protected by decree of Her Majesty, and petitions to the local lords obliged in public safety ought to be similarly protected. The right to report a crime to appropriate authorities is justly protected, and the right to report a danger ought to be protected similarly.

Towards that end:

If a man reports to any agent of the Crown, of any authorized Church, or any lord of Cheliax or their staff a problem with monsters or bandits or similar threats to public safety and law and order in Cheliax, or reports a specific failure of a local lord, a local priest, or of Her Majesty's appointed leadership in addressing public safety and law and order in Cheliax, believing his report to be true and not misleading, his actions do not constitute slander or libel and are protected by law. He may not be punished unless it is demonstrated that his intent was to incite a crime or that he knew his report to be false or misleading.

"Very well, you have convinced me. I still worry it will create confusion and encourage disputes over where boundary lines should be drawn, but I would vote in favor of this draft."

He is not looking forward to fielding the complaints about the other lords in his region, but maybe he should think about this as lending them his credibility until they can establish their own.

"I think a lot of crime reports could be construed as slander or libel if someone with the opportunity to make that call wanted them to. That's not really something we can deal with from here, just noting it."

"While my order and the others like it made compromises to operate in Infernal Cheliax, one valuable service we provided the state nonetheless, and have continued to so far, is law enforcement which is uniform across the country and disconnected from the personal politics of the more venal lords, of which there remain many at the lower ranks the Queen could not inspect closely. I would prefer if the provisions for reports to churches also have explicit mention of orders trusted and empowered by the Crown to enforce Law. Whether the existing orders are so empowered or new ones organized can be a matter for Her Majesty, or considered as a separate proposal if the committee or convention wishes to take it up. I would suggest 'of any Crown-authorized Church or order' as the wording."

He's not going to make a fight of it but it's worth trying.

"Perhaps we should word it 'orders chartered by the Crown to aid in the provision of justice'. Which brings to my attention another potential deficiency in wording; the entire staff of a lord of Cheliax might include many who would not be useful recipients of such a complaint, but I don't immediately see how to clearly distinguish informing a guardsman of a potential manticore and informing a cook."

"I could imagine someone reporting a manticore to the cook if the cook is, say, their cousin, and I'd find it exasperating but I don't actually think it ought to be illegal. Delegate Pages, the slander law protects reports of crimes to appropriate authorities already; we are just expanding it to allow reports of conduct that is noncriminal but relevant to public safety. I would break no laws if I sat in my castle letting manticores eat people but it would be appropriate to notify the Archduke Blanxart that I had so abdicated my duties."

She adds 'orders chartered by the Crown to aid in the provision of justice'. The other side of the deal where the Hellknights support her is that she supports them, where it's reasonable.

Carlota does have point about earlier reports of spawning monsters or undead. "Any of my staff should know well to pass along manticore reports, Your Grace, and if this proposal is adopted I expect each lord will need to decide how best to handle it within their own household." And specifying how nobles should run their houses is not something he wants more of from this convention.

He'll nod to the duke and duchess to make his acceptance clear.

"Indeed. I think we're all managing perfectly well internally, and it's just a matter of getting the populace in the habit of petitioning for, and receiving, the aid they require until they understand how civilization is meant to function. If there is no further comment on this proposal, I would like to call a vote on it."

"In favor."

"Aye."

"In favor."

"Aye."

"Aye."

"In favor."