Yes, it was very impressive, yes, he appreciates the recognition. 

Hot boy fights liches? Oh noooo. He's out of her league.

(She'll cheer anyway.)

He still hasn't been able to figure out why liches are still supposed to be bad.  After all, if the Asmodeans don't like them, and they aren't Chaotic (he doesn't think?), shouldn't the Asmodeans' enemies like them?

But it's not like he minds one bit.  He's happy to cheer for one less lich loose.

She'd never actually dealt with liches, in any of her travels, but the more common sorts of undead caused enough problems, in her experience.

Good on the nobles for sorting that out, she claps along with much of the room.

Though somehow liches causing problems results in the worse nobles backing a worse censorship bill? That wasn't even the type of problem that it would have occurred to her that the undead might cause. 

Zzzzzzz wait someone said her name? Oh, congratulations for the lich killing. Yes, she’s awake and attentive and whatnot, look at what a good pet druid she is. Does tricks for political gain and everything, practically a noble herself.

Voshrelka already dealt with the lich and rescued the badgers?! That's amazing! Enthusiastic clapping!

...Feather only learned of it yesterday, how is Voshrelka always two steps ahead of her - duh, fourth circle and hundreds of years of experience. She should trust her wise elders more. Enthusiastic clapping!! Hurrah for elder druids!

It won't take her hundreds of years to make fourth circle tthough she has seen the lofty heights of great Wisdom and she is climbing flapping up deterninedly.

"Some of these men disagree with me about censorship, and some agree with me. On many other matters, too, we stand here in fierce disagreement. But when duty called, every man it called on volunteered without hesitation, and every one fought bravely. I hope that we return from this great deed renewed in our confidence that against our country's enemies we are all united, and renewed in our determination to build a country where no man dies for another's twisted pursuit of immortality, or profits from such horrid crimes.

With that said - one lich subverted Osirion's censorship board. So for this reason we are going to ban all published material in Cheliax, while every single practical barrier to having our own censorship board that existed yesterday remains, while the only problem to have arisen so far with the new law is one a censorship board wouldn't even solve? Really? 

 I pray to Iomedae every morning before this convention, not for her valor in battle, but for her wisdom as a writer of laws, as someone who with great foresight and boldness lay a course for her country better than any laid before, as someone who understood that peace is purchased with institutions as much as with swords. 

But she did not attempt to address Tar-Baphon with a censorship law. She had smites for that. She fought him. She beat him. And she did not leave Lastwall a set of reactive hamfisted overreactions to his manipulations, but a code of laws that has managed to stand tall against every evil without treating its own people as one. This afternoon I intend for the committee on Safe Roads and Safe Villages to consider for adoption Lastwall's rules regarding liches and necromancy - but of course I don't imagine adopting those rules would have prevented the Badger publications either. And frankly I don't wish they had. The Badger publications were in the end a great public service. They made the heroes of Westcrown aware there was a lich in their city, and once we knew we could swiftly bring about its destruction. If there are any more liches in Cheliax I hope they write all about themselves so we can find them and destroy them.

So, yes, the censorship law is ill-suited to prevent liches. It seems to be working just fine to cultivate caution and wisdom in men. If it fails, we can revise it. But I would caution this convention against imagining that we serve our country only, or even primarily, by forbidding things and commanding punishments. Sometimes the thing to do about the evils of the world is to make wise laws, and sometimes it is to go place ourselves in danger's way to end them."

Applause for the adventuring party! Applause for her ally and bill-writer!

"Your Grace, I extend my heartfelt congratulations to all the brave delegates who fought against the lich and ensured the people of Westcrown need no longer fear her schemes.

But I fear you have drawn the wrong lessons from Iomedae. When she established Lastwall's censorship regime, she did not use it as an opportunity to perform untested radical experiments; she left them with a censorship board, as practiced by nearly every country on Golarion. She certainly did not allow Tar-Barphon's vassals to publish necromantic propaganda merely so that they might be located more swiftly. There is a time and a place for novel experiments," such as the Age of Glory "but there is also a time and a place for following the time-tested example of other Lawful countries, which have shown us that censorship boards are an adequate strategy for maintaining a Lawful state and promoting virtue amongst the populace.

If you are concerned the initial staffing will be inadequate, I would gladly welcome the recommendation of additional wise and virtuous men of good judgment to sit on the board." (Which is to say that he's willing to offer the mild concession that the Duchess of Chelam can appoint someone who will approve any publications that have her endorsement. He does not even slightly trust the judgment of the Duchess of Chelam but it is probably not so bad that she'd recommend a censor who would approve destructive publications.)

Lastwall was absolutely an untested radical experiment! It's not thought of that way today, because it was a successful radical experiment. However the rules do not permit her to debate without getting back in the (long) line, which would be beneath her dignity, so she nods politely and returns to her seat.

He respects Narikopolus the most out of the holdover nobles he's had to interact with. It's a genuinely good point, that the Chelish people are lost, and don't know the way towards Good, or even non-Evil Law, or really any personal virtue. Many of his problems would be solved if he could really trust any of his subjects.

Unfortunately, that's not the only consideration.

"The Archduke of Menador and Duchess of Chelam have raised very sympathetic concerns. I think Conde Cerdanya has addressed them well, but I expect reasonable men and women to disagree." Some of them because they are doing their best and are wrong, some of them because they are radical idiots. "I support this bill, not because it has no drawbacks, but because it is a solution to the very real dangers we face today. One week ago, hundreds of men and women died. They died because we did not stop them from dying. We tried in the moment," some of us, "to protect the innocent, to disperse the mobs, to avoid the bloodshed. It was too little, and too late, after radical ideas had poisoned the minds of so many in this city. The way to avoid those deaths is by acting before those ideas spread. That is how we avoid a repeat of the Terrible Third.

Yesterday, we told you that the proposed censorship bill contained too many exemptions, and we were assured that they were necessary and proper. It was only hours later that the first abuse of those exemptions occurred. I am proud to have helped promptly deal with the lich responsible, yes." He nods thanks to Carlota. "But plugging leaks after they have sprung is inferior to building a solid dam in the first place. I doubt that yesterday's Badger will be the only failure of that law, rather than the very first.

The Duchess of Chelam tells us of Lastwall, and their prudence. I agree we can emulate their example, but as Conde Cerdanya says, the fact is that Lastwall's censorship law is far closer to his proposal than it is to the bill passed yesterday. They maintain a censorship board to determine what may be published, just as we propose, rather than a laundry list of alternative avenues of approval.

Archduke - your Highness, your sincerity is plain, and neither I nor anyone else here should want you forced to execute virtuous men and women for spreading the teachings of Good. I would be horrified if that was the result of this law. If you still cannot condone this proposal, I suggest a compromise: that this proposal be amended to allow publications permitted by either the new Royal Censorship Board, or by Lastwall's Censorship Board, to avoid outlawing those texts that might bring the populace closer to Law and Good. We cannot abide by a dozen exemptions, but a single one, for Iomedae's own country, seems reasonable."

He doesn't see an obvious problem there but it's possible Acevedo had a good reason not to include that provision in his draft. But it seems reasonable enough, and if he puts it to a vote it might redirect some of the less extreme radicals into arguing for the preservation of that exception, rather than attempting to defeat the law in its entirety.

"Thank you, Your Grace. Before we vote on this proposal, I would welcome a vote on an amendment to additionally permit any work that was approved by Lastwall's Censorship Board as of the first of Sarenrith, except where prohibited by other decrees — I phrase it such not out of any concern for what Lastwall's censors will approve in the future, but in recognition of the wrong done to Osirion's censors yesterday, and the desire to avoid similarly impinging on Lastwall."

It occurred to him, standing in line, that if he didn’t realize this wasn’t an elaborate loyalty test until recently, other people may still not realize that.  So to sway enough people to stop books from being (effectively) banned in Cheliax, he just needs to make it clear what the correct loyal answer is. 

He’s taken advantage of the anonymity for this speech, too many nobles are too strongly in favor.

“1 year hard labor and an additional year for every 10 unpaid crowns of fines, so if they aren’t a rich noble that is 9 or 10 or 11 years of hard labor, depending how desperately the ‘criminal’ can scrape together money.  The Conde would have you think of this applying to Liches and vile crude satirists, but there is no exception for the type of written material.  You could be punished with a decade of hard labor for sharing a recipe from a cookbook, sharing a textbook, sharing a commentary on a virtuous God, or even accidentally sharing a wedding invitation too publicly.  The Conde would claim that surely the prosecutors and judges would be more reasonable but we’ve seen the judges have been (quite reasonably given recent history prior to the Four Day War) committed to the letter of the law and prosecutors in this Cheliax aren’t known for merciful discretion.  The Conde would have you believe a brutal response is necessary to stop anarchy and is thus Lawful.  But I ask you, what is the Good thing to do?  We are called not just to be Lawful, but Good also.  Forcing a choice between 10 years hard labor or illiteracy while we wait on some tiny board of censors to get around to enough books isn’t Good.  Choose not just the Lawful thing, even infernal Cheliax under the Thrunes could call it also Lawful.  Choose the Good thing, and reject this proposal for its outlandishly cruel penalty!  The Queen herself is Lawful and Good and was satisfied with 30 days penalty for pamphlet crimes in isolation of other crimes, look to her wise and Good and Lawful example and reject this proposal with it’s nearly Asmodean level of brutality in punishments!” 

…he may have went too far.  The illusionary disguise made him too confident, and he was already angry at the prospect of no books.  He’s worried about how attempts to pursue slander prosecution interacts with Archmage authorized anonymity.  The Archmage probably wins out, but it is unwise to bet on it.

"Delegate, every Good country on Golarion has a censorship board, and penalties for distributing illegal works. The specific penalties in this statute are identical to those prescribed by the laws of Taldor. I would not claim that the laws of Taldor are perfect in their every particular, but I am sure we can both agree that Taldor is not Asmodean.

There are Lawful polities which prescribe a lighter penalty for simple distribution of unapproved works, increasing in strictness depending on the nature of the prohibited work. If this body would prefer us to rewrite this law after the example of those polities, we will certainly do so, but such a law would necessarily be far more complex, and lend itself to far more uncertainty as to how it would be interpreted in any particular case."

Taldor isn't actually Good is it?  And he's heard bad things about it, like it's Cheliax without the Asmodeanism openly acknowledged and instead buried under rationalization, but those claims might themselves be Asmodean propaganda.  Whatever, since this isn't a loyalty test and is actually for real, he cares about being able to read books when he wants to, not about making true claims.

"Last night, after speaking with a Select, I made a copy of a commentary on The Acts of Iomedae.  This proposal, without further amendment would make that illegal.  The literacy of this nation is a blessing and a virtue and one of it's unique strengths.  I think perhaps some of the foreign nobility fail to realize just how many books there are and how widespread literacy is.  Asmodeus chained this country in slavery and lies, but gave us the tool of literacy to make us more useful, so let us turn it against his chains of lies and ignorance."

She worked on that line hard, even if she did kind of crib it from one of Korva's earlier speeches to the Education Committee.

"A commentary on a virtuous holy book would surely be swiftly approved, but there are more than dozens of such commentaries for each holy book, so I'm unsure how quickly a censorship board could even get to essential fundamentals like that, and it would be even worse for less critical but still useful books like various textbooks and primers, and even worse for more obscure textbooks and less obviously useful topics.  The authors of this proposal claim the censorship board would act swiftly, and they also claim the censorship law of yesterday was too hasty.  So my counter proposal is this: add in an amendment delaying the beginning of the promulgation of this law until after the censorship board has approved it's first thousand books.  A thousand might sound like a lot, but consider, several dozen good commentaries to each holy book, several dozen fundamental and basic textbooks and primers for every edifying educational topic, several dozen of the most popular and virtuous works of fiction imported from Andoran... just getting a moderate selection for a moderate range of topics adds up..."

She isn't actually sure how quickly this adds up and how quickly a censorship board would work... she needs to get better at math and whatever math techniques there are for guessing.

"This amendment would allow the law to go into effect swiftly if it's authors are correct a censorship board could work swiftly, and delay it if they've made an error in their estimation of a censorship's board's speed.  With an amendment like that... and the amendment to allow Lastwall's books... and an amendment with some clarification on gradations and moderations of punishment (I agree that is an issue the Conde is not weighing heavily enough)... this proposal is... adequate... although at the rate problems are being pointed out, I would think it would be better to learn from yesterday's example and spend more time considering the issue before passing a law."

Yesterday's law relies on the actions of private citizens taken in anticipation that the law will remain in effect; a conditional repeal of it would slow down its operation. But he likes the idea of a challenge that they must meet or not.

"I believe that proposal to be redundant with the proposed amendment permitting works approved by Lastwall's Board of Censors, which has certainly approved more than a thousand books already, including commentaries on the holy books of righteous gods, educational texts, and virtuous works of fiction. I worry that delaying for an additional thousand approvals, on top of the multitude of works already approved in Lastwall, would needlessly inhibit the Crown's ability to keep order and lead to confusion as to what laws are actually in force."

There's really something fascinating about it, that both good and evil are so terrified of people hearing enough of the world to know anything about it. But she is neither. And has nothing she can do about it except speak, so she hopes that yesterday wasn't a fluke.

"To the anonymous delegate who asked whether yesterday's censorship law would ban posting a public wedding invitation, which is currently allowed: this new one says that for that act, assuming you are not wealthy and have no land to sell, you ought to be sentenced to eleven years in the mines, which is in fact a death sentence that merely doesn't come with the opportunity to choose the final blade. If you are wealthy, and make the same mistake, it says that you ought to get at least one year in them.

To Delegate Oriol, who asked whether yesterday's law would make the news harder to get: if the Archduke is right, and he knows better than I, this law will make legally running a newspaper nearly impossible. If you attempt to obtain a written account of the news anyway, and a judge declares that it is public, you are to be given forty lashes, and then - well, assuming it's a short newspaper, you may be able to sell some of your livestock to pay perhaps a two gold fine, and not have to sell your farm itself to avoid being indentured. If you should instead unwisely buy an unapproved novel, it's forty lashes and a fine of perhaps a hundred gold, which I think under most circumstances one should expect to be a life indenture, if you are indeed alive at that point.

Last week, I realized that I did not understand the way that the governments of other countries worked, or even particularly my own. I was busy, so I hired a child of, oh, maybe ten, to look for a bookstore that had in stock information about the basic structure of governments, and copies of foreign constitutions. The child found a fantastic deal on them, and decided to buy the books and return with them to me, in the hope that I would be even happier with that.

Under the law we passed yesterday, it's quite easy to make this interaction legal again; the bookseller would in the future need to affix a page clarifying the statute these works were sold under, and mark them with an arcane mark, at which point the sale is legal. Under the proposed law, the only way to make it legal is for each of these works to pass through the censorship board, which I expect will be far too busy working through books of theology to bother with explanations of government structure for quite some time. If we were to have the interaction anyway, this law suggests that the bookseller should be sent to the mines - for ten years, I suppose, since I doubt if he could pay even his existing debts off without the right to sell any of his books - and that either I, the child, or perhaps both of us, should be given forty lashes, and that we might escape a life indenture only because of the delegate stipend. Naturally, as I attempt to be a law abiding citizen, I would not do this. I would, instead, simply have no way of accessing information about the governments of other countries, or about my own, besides the text of the royal decrees themselves."

She's.... actually just confused about the entire structure of the penalty for buying books. If you're going to whip a good portion of people to death, why not send them to the mines for a flat year instead? If you're going to make money by indenturing them, why have a step where you whip a bunch of them to death? Why equivocate between a week in prison and forty lashes? - okay, that part's easy, it's so that judges can decide to send wealthy but not powerful people to prison for a week instead of flogging them to death, but the combination flogging-fine is still kind of confusing. Whatever, you don't stir up righteous anger by sounding confused.

"Yesterday, the rights committee did speak of creating and empowering a censorship board - one focused solely on the theater. Based on that discussion, I believe that twenty teams of two men is about the right number to adequately censor solely new Chelish plays, at a slower but sustainable clip, relative to what we are used to. It takes so long because most plays, it turns out, require multiple rounds of revision, even if they are ultimately accepted. Books, of course, are the same.

I happen to know that before it burned down, the Egorian Academy Library alone contained more than one hundred thousand books. Since people began importing foreign books, there are now more than ever before to go through. If asked to look through decades of material - decades in which each year saw more books published than anywhere else in the world - a skeleton censorship board will not have time for public notices or invitations. It will not have time for sewing primers or cookbooks. It will not have time for you. And if you try to read or write those things anyway - we have discussed the penalties, but I think I will take a moment to discuss them again.

I have taken forty lashes with a penal cat. I took them when I was fifteen, without army training, so I can tell you what a teenager or an old woman would experience, perhaps even better than a soldier can. As you can see, I survived, but not everyone is so fortunate. Forty penal lashes are enough to rip large portions of the skin from a person's back, to begin to dig out the muscle below. You actually stop being concerned about the damage to the back quite quickly, because it soon becomes apparent that the really terrifying thing is that some inner fluid is flowing into the lungs. If not given something to bite, you are very likely to bite the tongue and lips, badly enough that more blood flows down into the lungs, since you are at that point having difficulty swallowing. It reaches a point where a part of you hopes for the next stroke, because if it comes quickly enough, they may unchain you before you suffocate, and you may be able to find some position that allows you to breathe. The pain, of course, is indescribable. I actually didn't faint until after they unchained me, but I had a fever and could not walk for about three weeks.

I got my lashes because I was too busy reading Skaldic poetry to focus on my lessons. Because the things I wanted to learn were not considered valuable, and yet I wanted to know what other peoples did so badly that I found it difficult to focus on arcana. It was explained to me, at my own and other floggings, that the number forty is chosen because it is the number where death is, while far from a certainty, considered unsurprising. Because we were not worth the effort of intentionally flogging to death, but it would be absolutely no loss to the crown if such worthless children as us were to die for our failures.

I had hoped that what happened to me when I was fifteen was of hell. I had hoped that there was some other country in which no one suffered so for pursuing knowledge which no one actually finds objectionable, but which is not the knowledge the state most wishes you to have. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe that really is how they treat people in ordinary countries, and all the worst experiences of my life were not hell's influence. Maybe they really were just life, and none of the things that we disliked about hell are actually any different from how things are in Taldor.

Maybe so. But the only civil holiday our Queen has retained is the one where we celebrate not being Taldor, and she has asked us, here, to tell her how we wish to live. So I must ask all of you whether that is how you want to live again. Yesterday we didn't. I still don't. I don't want to live like that ever again, and I will vote no."

Is Taldor that blatantly evil?  Or maybe all the judges are some mix of absurdly corrupt and absurdly lenient and lighten punishments with the slightest provocation?  He’s actually curious, in a morbid kind of way, about Taldor now.  He could buy a book about it… if it’s still legal later this evening…

Lluïsa isn't sure how to feel about that speech.

Clap clap clap.

Oh, Cheliax. Whipping children with a cat?

The fundamental problem here is that all of the infernal Chelish are so traumatized by the infernal Chelish implementations of perfectly normal things like flogging criminals that they'll throw a tantrum about any law enforcement at all on the assumption it'll be incredibly evil law enforcement.

It really should have occurred to him during the drafting process that the Chelish people, used to being ruled by Hell, would assume their rulers intended to inflict the punishments of Hell even in cases when it would be manifestly unreasonable. This did not, in fact, occur to him, and he's looking faintly horrified at the prospect of having someone brutally tortured to death for purchasing an illegal sewing primer.

"In countries that are not being ruled by Hell, it is not typical practice to use a spiked cat on civilians for crimes such as this one," he says. "I do not wish to condemn anyone to a painful and torturous death merely for possessing forbidden literature. In Arodenite Cheliax, the sentence for a crime such as this would have been carried out with a horsewhip. It would be manifestly unjust to inflict the sentence you just described, and I will edit that provision immediately to ensure that this law is not abused in that fashion."

He strikes out "40 lashes" and replaces it with "40 lashes with a horsewhip." Hopefully his allies weren't counting on the forty lashes being inflicted by a spiked cat — no, actually, if they were counting on that he's willing to take the fall here, having someone tortured to death for purchasing a forbidden sewing primer would be absurd and Evil.

He is not at all sure that the censorship board would find many books worth approving in Egorian's library, but that seems less important than clarifying the issue of punishments. There are other supporters of the bill in line who can make that point.