FINALLY.

Surely even the Evil nobles won't be willing to support a literal portal to Hell, right?

Oh good, something straightforward that won’t give her a headache trying to keep all the pieces straight.  

Sounds great. Why can't everyone write proposals like this one?

Unfortunately for reasons no one in this room except her, Elie, and possibly Mephistopheles know, the party doing this without consulting an army of lawyers first would be the worst action it is possible to take as a mortal short of letting Rovagug out. This is really kind of emblematic of what's wrong with Republicanism.

That's what the druids want????? Give it to them!!

"I second this motion! If it moves the archmages or the Queens to hear our perspective they should know that this is a great priority of the convention."

Won't anyone think of the fascinating experiments that this will make completely impossible?

(He's not dumb enough to say that.)

Preach it. Or, well, continue the sensible strategy of not preaching it.

A nice easy unobjectionable proposal written in plain language with no tricks or even drawbacks.  Does it score political points to make speeches in favor of obvious easy proposals?  Even if it does, Thea doesn’t want to waste time, so she’ll sit back and not do anything for once and vote in favor once it’s time.

Wait, there's a portal to Hell? Why are they planning to close it, Cheliax is the one with all the archmages now. They should be invading to make Hell a colony, see how they like it when the shoe is on the other foot. 

"If there was any doubt, I speak for the Knights of the Pike in confirming that this portal exists and causes a great deal of harm to both forest and farm. Please close it as soon as it can be practically done."

YES, THIS IS WHAT THE DRUIDS WANT!! FUCKING FINALLY! These proposals were ready over a week ago and you assholes put it off and started killing each other instead of getting to the VERY REASONABLE DEMANDS that the DRUIDS HAVE!!! Do you idiots want to starve, why is this a difficult fucking question. Close the portal to Hell, don't commit atrocities towards dryads, don't starve, ask any of the paladins you imported, any one of them would agree with all of this.

She supposes she doesn't have to go around the Sower in favor of bothering the queen directly after all. That's nice. It would have been annoying, and she suspects the queen has to deal with quite a lot of idiots, by how quickly she got her piece of paper of 'don't bother the druid that is casting Plant Growths.' That sort of thing speaks of just how many stupid, stupid people have been bothering her.

Portals to hell are bad. Hopefully even the evil nobles can figure that one out.

"I wholeheartedly support this proposal, and I hope the archmages will carry it out with all possible haste!"

This question does not really require his input, but he is, really, a bit confused by how comfortable this body, which was convened by an archmage against the wills of many of its participants, is about issuing that same archmage orders. Although maybe the archmage likes it. He doesn't know.

“Hey. If you want to petition the queen about your forest problems, write a letter. Don’t waste all our time. One more thing. How about we let the archmages  decide what to do themselves? This convention already tried to vote to take coin from their pockets, are we just going to have one obnoxious and ungrateful slight to the archmages every day, now? Maybe they haven’t gotten to this little problem because they had a bigger portal to close? Something up north, had this big treaty about it? Everyone’s sons and brothers sent to die holding it? Anyone remember what I’m talking about?”

The President presumably likes conventions and conventions petitioning for stuff, so this should actually be fine?  Hopefully he will give them some actually warning if he thinks they are being presumptuous?  The only thing that actually bothers him are attempts to target other delegates which the slander law was much closer on.

Still, thinking more logically, the petition is only likely to  nudge the list of priorities for the archmages, it should, in theory, be mostly already set in a particular order, with petitions at most moving the hell portal up or down a few places, not sending it straight to the top.

Aren't there other channels to report Hell portals along? But sure, if it comes to a vote, this one's pretty obvious.

Liushna decides that this is an excellent opportunity to explain druids to Rojix, first in Chelish and then in Itarii.

"The Whisperwood is not as great a problem as the Worldwound. But the Wound is closed. Delegate Tiumfane has come from the druids of the Whisperwood to draw our attention to the portal, and it would surely be easier for all those who farm near his forest if the burden of fighting the portal's monsters was lighter; once in that they and my order would be able to keep more of the devilish beasts away, and a second time in that some of their druids might be spared to negotiate plant growth for their neighbors. We will be cleansing the wood for many years hence even if it is closed today, but now is still the best time, and as soon as the archmages can be spared the second-best."

Petitioning the Queen is all very well, but Feather didn't get the impression the Chelish authorities didn't already know about the portal.

This is a constitutional convention. Maybe they should write into the constitution that 'Chelish rulers must close any portals to the lower planes in its territory'.

She's not going to propose that to the floor, because it would interfere with the current resolution and because wrangling the Forests committee to get even this far was hard enough even before the riots. Eulalia's speech against the new censorship law showed wisdom and tact, which implies that whenever she was being stupid and nasty it was on purpose. Best to let Voshrelka run the show, and hope Eulalia has forgotten about the "we hate druids and they are to blame for everything" resolution she passed in committee in exchange for agreeing to peace negotiations with the Forest. (They do need to pass the resolution about peace negotiations, though. Or is it a law now?)

Technically this part is Tuimfane's show, and Voshrelka is just supporting it. Her own proposal for the convention is about not felling dryad trees. But yes, sure, Feather is free to think of her as the resident elder druid in charge. Realistically, she probably is, in this little druid clan marooned in civilization.

Hm. Proposed by a Sower, and it has the proper form for a petition. Of course he'll vote for it, and probably should say something in support too.

"Wise words from the Sower. The nobility of this realm, their companions, and the orders they support are the primary line of defense the people have against these foul supernatural invasions. The one point of Chelish pride that was well-earned during the infernal years was that Cheliax stood tall against the Worldwound, and now I hope we can turn our attention to domestic troubles. I encourage you all to vote in favor, and also for any of you with the power to defend the people of Cheliax, to consider how you can be receptive and responsive to the needs of your people, and encourage them to bring you their troubles through swift and just resolution of them. As above, so below."

Tuimfane thinks that Voshrelka is senior. Why would this be his show. He doesn't want it to be his show. He didn't want to show up in the first place and now there's an elf older than he is. He sees no reason not to do what Senior Elf says, under the circumstances.

Why are people talking. He said he called for a vote. Does he need to come up with magic vote words. He didn't prepare Make People Vote Already this morning.

The magic vote word you're looking for is "cloture".

Wait, wait! Voshrelka knows this one. She has learned this secret of the civilized arts. She will do this witchcraft to make the vote happen instead of listening to everyone use lots of words to say nothing.

"We're all just standing here agreeing the portal to Hell is bad. Motion to cloture and move on."

"Thank you, yes."

Cloture passes.



Telling the Queen to fix the Hell portal?

This is not a hard question.

They're, like, probably already working on it, but on the off chance, yeah, portals to the lower planes are bad.

A nice easy yes vote that she doesn't need to stress about. 

Finally, an easy vote!  Yes.

In favor. Taís doesn't really get why they need to vote on this at all. Maybe they'll be rounding up anyone who votes to keep the Hell portal and executing them. 

Obviously the archmages should close the Hell portal!!! In favor.

It would be obscurely amusing to see who voted against this, if it was still public. For.

He's going to be one of, like, six people, but he's against it.

Maybe if they're closing hell portals they won't be ruining any more merchants by undercutting them. For.

The Archmage and Queen seem really unlikely to take offense to a petition, and that’s the only potential issue.  For.

Even if he could think of some benefit to keeping the Hell portal, he's not an idiot. In favor.

In favor. Obviously.

Ysabet stopped paying attention about half an hour ago. They're voting again? Abstain, she doesn't know what they're voting on.

Marit is not entirely sure how the decision to prioritize running a constitutional convention above a portal to Hell was made. In favor of petitioning the Queen and archmages.

In favor.

Against, the mortals won't know who voted but Nethys obviously will.

In favor, this was the whole point of everything.

Against. The archmages will close it when they get around to it. 

For. Didn’t the druids say this was one of their conditions to start blessing the fields? There isn’t that much of a hurry, but they should get it done before next harvest. 

(No, there is. These effects are cumulative, blessing fields just before harvest isn’t nearly as good as blessing in spring. They’re already pushing it, with starting in summer.)

Passes, 441-27.

How are there twenty-seven people who voted against closing a portal to Hell.

"Thank you all kindly, and one more thing. We'd like the killing of dryads and the sale of their wood banned." Txell, if you have the exact wording...

Sure, if he has it written down she can read it...

The committee condemns the Evils wrought under Asmodean rule against our friends and neighbors, and recommends to Her Majesty that the law prohibit the harvest for sale of dryad trees, or conspiracy for the same, on pain of death, and we recommend that those organizations charged with tracking down cults and Asmodean remnants be charged also with investigating whether these incursions have ceased, and bringing them to an end if they haven't.

Shit, did he fuck up?

Feather didn't realize this was odd when the committee met on the first day of the convention, but in retrospect it really stands out that the other committees have been bringing actual laws to a vote while all they have is a toothless 'recommendation to the Queen'. Closing the portal to Hell requires the archmages and they can't pass a law telling them what to do - Elie Cotonnet outright struck down some would-be laws that they voted for - but stopping the murder of dryads is surely a valid law. The floor would probably vote the same way for a law as for a recommendation.

This wouldn't have happened if that horrible woman didn't decide to have her fun by way of hurting the forests. Even if the vote for the recommendation passes, they can't propose an actual law the next day, that would probably insult the Queen after explicitly giving her a mere recommendation. Especially if the Queen decides to ignore the recommendation. Presumably she won't bother passing a decree just to say 'I am ignoring the recommendation and the law remains the same.' Which could mean no-one can tell if she's still considering it, or ignored it, or actually decided against it. Anyway to bring up a real law for a vote it would have to pass the committee and the horrible Eulalia would block that.

...maybe Voshrelka has a better plan? Feather thought she was trading not-killing-dryads for plant growths, but surely she wouldn't trade them for merely voting up a suggestion if the Queen ignores it, so - she must be doing some strategic groveling behind the scenes to make the Queen endorse it (if it passes), otherwise why even work through the Convention?

...Who do they have speaking up to second the suggestion? They need to at least explain to the floor that dryads are all Good and that they die if you kill their trees! The Sower didn't actually explain why it's much more important to stop harvesting dryad trees than other trees! She gets in line to speak.

Hi, yes, elder convention druid here, she's available to be two steps ahead of Feather yet again.

"Seconding," says the woman who brought up this proposal in the first place. "We now have more than one paladin in attendance; could one of them please come up and confirm for everyone that killing a dryad, especially for resources to extract from their corpses, is Evil? Because that's what felling them does. It kills them. Killing them should be illegal like murder is illegal."

She's not a paladin but she lined up to speak on this one. "The druid Voshrelka has been generous with her time and her spells in support of the people of Cheliax," she's doing her part of the bargain and giving us Plant Growths, "and her request of us was that we redress this evil of the old regime as promptly as possible. We are all benefitting from the generosity of the druids of the Barrowood, our neighbors and allies, and should ensure that this matter of great importance to them is handled." I do not give a shit about the trees but I give a shit about the Plant Growths and so should you. This is not actually a very expensive ask, in exchange for Plant Growths.

Sure, Elorri grew up near a forest. "Dryads are normally Chaotic Good, and even if it ever comes to pass that there is some legitimate reason to kill one, extracting their wood afterwards rewards murderer and non- alike and I will vote for a blanket policy against it."

Fey are, as a rule, to be suspected, but unless the Thrunes somehow corrupted the dryads, they are good, and deserve to be left alone. He'll clap from his seat.

Nod. There. Nobility and a paladin, both confirming Thing Bad. Any fucking questions.

"The harvest of dryad trees is vital to our national security. The magical properties of the wood make them especially useful for constructing warships; it's not impossible to achieve the same result with ordinary wood and spellsilver, but banning the dryad trade entirely would require a significant increase in spellsilver production to compensate. If the druids want to negotiate a formal treaty guaranteeing some quantity of plant growths, fine, but permanently outlawing a major industry in exchange for vague assurances that they could easily go back on in a year is just stupid."

...the major industry... is... murder...

Elorri appreciates the Law behind the anonymity but now he has to consider that almost anybody could have said that whenever he meets any of these people in a social context.

Well it wasn't this druid, because this druid is almost literally growling at the anonymous noble. She doesn't get up to speak, but she's definitely trying to figure out who the fuck that noble is, anonymity be damned.

She can probably rule out a bunch of people on the grounds that they're visibly sitting in the audience and couldn't have gotten back quite that quickly, but figuring out who it is is going to be harder.

There are only 600 people in this room, this is a solvable problem...

Jordi still doesn’t like sailors. Which means he’s friends with the druids and their forest creatures? Time to argue with that anonymous guy.

”Do we even still have any enemies with fleets that share a sea with us, to build more warships to fight?”

"Andoran's pirates constantly offer provocations on the high seas and when the time comes to reunify with them it will be necessary to stop all the pirates from interfering."

Is the convention going to now debate preparations for war on Andoran. What could possibly go wrong.

"Murdering innocents to build ships for war is Evil. Very plainly, very obviously Evil. I can't stop you from voting to keep doing it. But I can help make sure you're not deluding yourself."

"Anyone who votes to keep the vital murder industry is voting to perpetuate Evil and should not be surprised if they go to Hell."

Hopefully this is something enough people here care about?

"Andoran's pirates are looking for slaves, and it's not that they won't take other stuff when they catch a ship full of spices but we just made slavery illegal."

"It doesn't matter what excuses they give, we can't tolerate a neighbor with an active policy of encouraging piracy and lawlessness controlling the seas between us and Absalom."

“Andoran is ruled by a good archmage and a paladin, sharing power. They wouldn’t make a war against us for evil reasons, and I’d be suspicious of anyone who doubts paladins and good archmages so much.”

No one thinks Andoran is going to declare war on us, moron.

“Andoran still owes us for all their attacks on our ships. Spices stolen, sailors killed, ships destroyed or captured. We should build an even bigger fleet and pirate their ships until it’s all paid back.”

A downside of being old is it takes him substantially longer to make it to the line, when he does decide he needs to talk.

"Pirates are the enemy of all mankind," he begins, "but the fleet we inherited should suffice for keeping them in line. We do not have any enemies we would need a fleet to oppose, and we should not seek to turn any friends into enemies. We are building a new Cheliax, and I hope we make a government good enough that the people of the world clamor to join us in the Age of Glory. War to expand the empire is foolish ambition spurred by Hell, who profits greatly from it."

Reunifying the Empire isn't expanding it. 

Annoyingly she started the attempt to say something anonymous before the conversation inexplicably turned to declaring war on Andoran.

"Surely Murder is already Prohibited by Law, making no Distinction between Rooted Dryad and Ambulatory Man? Though it will not hurt to bring Clarity to the matter, I believe it is possibly already a Crime."

Obviously dryads are subjects of the Queen like all other forest denizens. Obviously no one has ever felled any since the amnesty. There are no political implications here!

War is of course a valiant and honorable pursuit, and all good men should of course be willing to take up arms if necessary, but making war on Andoran now seems... premature, when Cheliax is still barely functional. There's nothing dishonorable about waiting until your country is stable before looking outwards.

Probably he should be finding a way to explain that but for some inexplicable reason he's feeling kind of nauseous. Hopefully he's not becoming ill, finding a third-circle cleric would be moderately inconvenient.

"Right, but it's like the paladin said about rewards. Dryad wood's like loot you took off a man you killed in his home, so we can't have it about."

If war to expand the empire is evil, wouldn’t that make Aroden and ancient Taldor evil? Which can’t be true, because Iomedae helped them in the orc war and in the lich war. He doesn’t say because he’s not going to argue with a duke.

They're the heirs of Aspex, not of Taldaris, and Aspex's conquest was diplomatic in nature (this is a bit of a polite fiction, but a very useful one.)

"We don't need a bigger navy to beat Andoran when it's time to fight them. They've got one archmage and we've got three, and our strongest paladin's stronger than their strongest paladin."

...it's already illegal to murder forest creatures? Nobody in the Forests committee thought so!

It is not already illegal to murder forest creatures; you might not want a city lawyer as your consultant for that one.

No, it's not, that's just someone trying to lie to them to get the druids to do Plant Growths without actually conceding anything. It's backwriting laws, Asmodean Cheliax did it a bunch. Calm down, Feather.

“If I saw a neighbor selling people’s bones, I wouldn’t trust him at all. Even if he didn’t kill anyone himself, it means he has friends who do kill people and take their bones. Probably ghouls or nidalese. What I mean is, if we want to be good neighbors to the druids and dryads, can’t act like it’s okay to carve them up. Can’t always expect the fey to think like we do, but this is just common sense.”

This one she thought was straightforward but now people are going "maybe we should murder Chaotic Good beings to make better ships" and "freeing slaves is bad and not good and we should fight Andorran about it even though we've agreed that slavery is bad". She doesn't say anything but she is paying close attention to the arguments that people make that land better than her best attempts would. 

Selling people's bones is a problem? Wow, that's going to be an economic disaster, drow fucking love people's bones.

He thinks they actually might not have a navy at all, it having been destroyed in the four day war, but this doesn't really seem like a useful correction right now and if it's true someone else will probably say it anyway.

“If the dryads are to be protected by our laws, they must be accountable to those laws as well. I have no objection to declaring the felling of dryad trees to be murder. But if so, when a dryad kills a forester, it should be treated the same anyone else who committed murder, too.”

"This here doesn't say a thing about that, only that you can't use her tree after you do whatever you need to do."

It seems a waste to not use it after executing the dryad for murder. He’ll wait and see what the convention mood is before getting back in line. 

Being held accountable to laws and then also protected by them is better than the current system of being held accountable to laws and then also completely abandoned by them for profit and personal gain. She is not going to argue with Vidal's point, here; he is irritating, and has a grudge against her personally, but her quarrel is more with the likes of the damnably anonymous prick arguing about the murder of dryads being necessary for national security.

What does being accountable to laws mean for someone who lives in a forest. Can they tell a dryad to join their army and then Lawfully execute her for not showing up? Tax their acorns and leaves? Prosecute them for writing letters saying rude things about someone?

"The Order of the Pike has been requested to assist in harvesting these woods from dryads in the past, though it has not done so any time recently. We will likely to requested to do so again, and if this is law, we will refuse at all times in the future and enforce this ban alongside our other duties in the forests."

"Having made that clear, and seeing little further debate, I call for cloture."

Cloture passes!

And the vote?

Stop carving up dryads for their bones.

This seems like a terrible precedent. Next they're going to be banning selling regular people bones too. Against.

In favor.

In favor.

The paladin said what he said and none of the other paladins nor Lt. Sauer are making faces. In favor.

Wow, as far as he know dryads almost never go apeshit and burn down a city, they're softies. Still shouldn't murder them though.

In favor!

This is what the druids want for Plant Growth. She's not particularly defensive of fae, even supposedly Good fae, but they should give the druids what they want for Plant Growth. In favor.

It's not like dryads are any good to anybody alive. Against.

Voshrelka's making scary faces when anyone speaks against the law and would definitely murder Eulalia if she secretly voted no. 

This is one of those no-brainers. In favor.

Why do you think she's here. In favor.

Against. The navy isn't her priority here but anything that makes it cheaper will save them money for other things.

(She has still not connected Voshrelka to the bird from before).

In favor. Obviously. 

Was it in question. It should not be in question. Vote in favor, or this druid will blight each and every single field she blessed. It is possible to tell from her mutinous expression that she will stab a bitch and cause famine to the entire country to make this happen. Vote the thing, or else you will see just how the fuck this druid survived seventy years of Infernal Cheliax and made them hurt for it.

(She still needs to find that damned anonymous noble…)

Killing innocent people is bad even if those people are... trees? She didn't know people could be trees. In favor of not murdering people who are trees.

Abstain, so she can truthfully say she did.

Why is there such a strong custom against using people’s bones?  Well anyway, the Druids want this one small thing, in favor.

Murder is Evil, desecrating corpses is Evil, and with no personal stake in this he might as well accumulate as much easy Goodness as he can for the final judgement he’ll have to face one day.  In favor.

In favor, she's never seen one but she's heard good things about them and they're Chaotic Good and even if they weren't killing people to use their bodies is bad even if they're valuable bodies. 

Killing faeries still seems very stupid. In favor.

She doesn’t really care about some fey trees, probably best not to anger them… is it supposed to be a vote ‘against’ to mean against murdering fey trees, or a vote ‘for’ to mean for a proposal stopping murdering of them?  She should start brining snacks for when the floor session runs late.  Abstain.

Against. Easy access to dryad-wood seems much more useful than dryads continuing to be alive.

Against. If the forest-fae want people to leave them alone, maybe the forests should leave everyone else alone first.

In favor! It's too bad they're using secret ballots now.

... actually it seems kind of bad to kill more orphans in mines in order to have more fey. Not like she particularly wants to go around murdering fey, but apparently this is just a choice between murdering humans and murdering trees? 

Against.

In favor.

Against. Obviously.

Maybe not having much of a navy will just discourage people from conquering Andoran. One can hope. In favor, they need the plant growths.

...and more mining will technically make orc slaves more valuable, but he's trying not to think about that.

They shouldn't hurt you for using wood. Lots of things are made of wood. Against.

It's great how His Grace makes it easy to know how to vote. In favor!

Killing innocent people is wrong! For!

Against. The druids will never know it was him specifically.

Jaume dithers about this one for a bit, but - no, you really can't just go kill someone, even if they are a chaotic fey, in order to harvest their body. Not unless they have done something to make a particular threat of themselves first the way some monsters do. In favor.

How are they going to fight wars without a fleet? They should cut down more trees. Against.

Dryads sound like nice folks. In favor.

In favor. 

It doesn't matter. No one will know; even the gods aren't listening.

In favor.

Stop provoking the trees, they're bigger than you are. In favor.

Abstain.

Sure, for. All the monsters are now citizens. Even liches.

Carme doesn't give a shit. Abstain.

She really wishes she knew exactly how bad this would be for the navy - do they have the slack for this at all? But - in favor.

Fuck the forests. No.

They can get more spell silver; they can't get more plant growths, not this year. And the druid was decent about the lich. And the paladin seems pretty convinced it's murder. In favor.

Boss is going to need boats to conquer all the places that’ll be getting conquered soon. Against.

In favor, goodness.

Mattin is an Ostenso man, and the shipbuilding industry is Ostenso. But that doesn’t matter to the paladins, too squeamish to cut down some trees, ugh. Against. 

Aroden would have opposed this. Aroden would not have seen this as particularly complicated. Perhaps it is Evil to harvest dryad-trees, though he wouldn't go so far as to call it murder, but if so it is the sort of Evil that is necessary to enable all the progress of civilization, from the manufacture of common staves to mighty warships. 

...He should really get some air after this, and see if that settles his stomach.

Arodenite Cheliax did, not, actually, harvest dryad-wood, at least not at the scale of Asmodean Cheliax. This isn't some radical innovation, it is merely a return to tradition, a return to practices that worked perfectly well for hundreds of years and may work for hundreds of years in the future. If it would smooth relationships with the forests enough for them to bless all Cheliax's fields with Plant Growths, it could easily compensate for the harm done by the loss of dryad-wood.

If. It's an awful lot to stake on that.

But — it's reasonable. There's nothing shameful about guessing that Cheliax will be better served by plentiful harvests than by — magical items of all sorts.

In favor. It's a secret ballot. No one needs to know.

Vidal is pretty sure that even after the logging stops, the dryads are going to keep killing people who go into the forest. Plant Growth might be worth it with the country so fragile, but it’s unlikely the Voshrelka holds up her end of the arrangement for long. She’s already barely restraining herself over a single opposed voice.

Against, until they get some guarantees, acknowledgement of the law, and a less murderous druid. 

In favor.

Opposed. They'll need a strong navy when the time comes to put the Empire back together, and concessions to the druids are broadly unwise.

Passes, 267-186.

Good.

Okay. She's beholden to Plant Growth circuits for the rest of the year (ugh) but this is nonetheless a victory. Now to just hope they keep to it.

They'll stick to it as long as the Plant Growths keep coming. 

Good. 

If Voshrelka can get that for a single druid's worth of Plant Growth, imagine what a properly organized and not defenseless forest could get for several! They don't have diplomats who know how to grovel properly yet, but Feather will make sure they learn.

Sharing wisdom is an ancient druidic tradition, but the real war is long term, and: Voshrelka doesn't trust that Cheliax will stick to it if the Plant Growths keep coming, actually.

It's a victory nonetheless.