"It sounds like this proposal treats men and women the same. Why is that?"

He is really not sure why this is what he's been bribed to ask about but he's not going to complain. They're paying him pretty well, and the committee chair promised to promote Gozreh's interests in his barony when he returns home.

"It is true that this proposal makes no formal distinction between men and women. But one need only look at the example of our Lawful and Good queen to see that there are certainly women who can rule just as capably as any man. If those women are rare, then they will rarely be designated as heirs, and rarely inherit. The lack of formal distinction is only relevant in cases where a title-holder fails to name an heir, cases which should certainly be rare."

After the first half of the floor session, he is kind of having second thoughts about whether he should have tried harder to persuade the committee to bend on this point, but it's too late now.

Oh, this is going to be good .

"This is a Good proposal. Back home, when the baron died, his first son inherited the barony, and he spent all his time drinking and gambling. When we had a problem with ghoul-wolves, we had to put it down ourselves, because he wouldn't do anything about it. Lost my cousin, that way. 

With this proposal, any decent noble can just pick whichever of their kids will actually make the best replacement. There are even rules in place to stop them from picking a really bad replacement. Supporting this proposal is the right thing to do."

Almost none of that is true but he's not paid to say true things, now, is he.

Jonatan has really had enough of absurd radical proposals. Yes, there probably needs to be some mechanism in place to gracefully handle the situation where a resurrected noble dies before producing an heir, but that's no reason to do away with a perfectly functional, far more traditional system of inheritance and replace it with whatever this is.

He gets in line to explain this, but there are already a few people ahead of him.

Why are there rules against Chaotic nobles but not Evil nobles! Being Chaotic is fine, being Evil isn't! ...Probably because the man presenting it is himself an Evil noble and doesn't want to stop being allowed to go around hurting innocent people.

She gets in line. ...Anonymously, this time.

Why does this law have so many unnecessary extra paragraphs? "Each noble gets to pick who goes after them." Done.

She can’t see any problems with the proposal on a first reading, but her gut instinct is telling her there is.  At minimum, her sense from skimming committee transcripts it’s probably intended to help the nobles on the committee with their own succession.  But… it seems like this only affects nobility?  Maybe whatever hidden trap or idiocy or twist this proposal has will only affect the nobility and she can relax and enjoy the nobility infighting?

Well at minimum she needs to back up whatever her noble allies want if she can.  She owes them that much for stopping all books from being banned.  She’ll wait to get in line until she actually figure out what they want.

This proposal is too obviously stupid and unprincipled to debate. What is wrong with these people.

They're trying to make new laws for the nation. A thousand sub-national differences in custom are exactly what they need not to introduce, especially not in such a disgusting and embarrassing way.

Aspexia knew this was a bad idea. She politely suggested this was a bad idea. People were skeptical.

If this passes, she will consider Pichot i Bordas a politic genius.

Republicanism is such a stupid way to make these decisions. Now they have to explain to a bunch of commoners why this is a naked power grab. 

"I know that to many of you it may not seem like it matters how the nobles choose their successors. But it does, because when there's any confusion, there's a civil war, and when there's a bad lord, everyone suffers. So the law ought to bring about good lords, and no question of who the heir is. This proposal is clearly a bunch of nonsense written to keep ten particular people in their seats. The longstanding traditions of the Longmarch? What longstanding traditions of the Longmarch?? Everyone who's been in power there the last century was an Asmodean! You pass this, you'll have twenty stupid civil wars over what 'longstanding traditions' everyone's able to forge or dig up but which absolutely no one was actually holding by. 

Here's what you want. A man's heir is his oldest legitimate son, and if he has no living legitimate sons his brothers, and if he has no living brothers his sister's sons. If a man is manifestly unsuitable to inherit his father can disinherit him by decree, or just tell him to go prove his worth. Any man who's found engaged in diabolism should be put to death as a traitor immediately, that doesn't need to be in the inheritance rules. It's simple, it works, it's not traditional everywhere but it's traditional a great many places and the traditions of this country are too Asmodean to preserve anyway."

This is garbage. Self-serving garbage. Sure, not everything they suggested is bad, but even the parts Jilia is in favor of are probably there as self-serving garbage.

She'll get in line.

"I think that we should abolish the nobility like Galt did," contributes someone who is slightly confused about what Galt did.

Huh, this seems pretty good! A bad noble is bad news for everyone else.

"Your Grace, there are many traditional forms of inheritance that predate Asmodean rule. If someone tries to reaffirm an Asmodean tradition, the Queen can simply refuse them. Your alternative proposal is simple, yes, but it fails to account for the many nobles in this room who have been dead a hundred years and have neither living children nor living siblings."

"Then get married and get to work, son."

"I echo His Grace's words, and would add that this law purports to restore tradition while in truth paying it little attention. In the vast majority of the Arodenite empire, the eldest son inherited, save in the case where he had taken vows incompatible with doing so. Succession by designation was not unheard of, but it was far from the norm — and for good reason, as the uncertainty of such a method often led to unnecessary strife between siblings. It is better for there to be no ambiguity, and certainly better if a lateborn son is not encouraged to secure an inheritance by deception and trickery.

I do not disagree that any proposal ought account for the fact that some of us have no living heirs, but we are not writing a constitution merely for the next few years. Our proposal is meant to stand the test of time, or at minimum the test of the next forty years, and ought not enshrine measures necessary only for the present situation as permanent fixtures of our law."

The problem with the eldest son inheriting is that he's the second son.

"Your Excellency, your objection assumes that titleholders are too foolish to determine which of their children are best suited to rule. Any sensible titleholder can simply refuse to designate someone as their heir if that person is intentionally causing strife between their siblings."

...He had not, actually, been particularly focused on dealing with the various barons and minor lords in his county. He knew there was a chance it would come back to haunt him, but it wasn't like he had anyone to replace them with. Everyone he trusted has been dead for eighty years. And there was so much work to do in the rest of his county; the previous count had completely ignored all of its actual problems in favor of playing incomprehensible Asmodean political games, and it would have been a minor disaster if he'd let the multiple separate nests of amphisbaena continue to grow, let alone the bonesuckers in the south.

As far as he could tell when he briefly attempted to make sure that the barons weren't going to go around causing him problems, the bizarre succession method in use in Miravet had spread to Conesa, and both baronies were now being ruled by Galè, Antoni, and Joan Pichot i Bordas, with Gale residing in Miravet and the other two in Conesa, and there was a good chance they were all awful but he didn't have reason to think they were any worse than anyone else in Cheliax.

He should probably figure out what's actually going on. (He's so tired. He cannot wait to get back to Axis with its personal-customized-illusion-boxes the details of which he is not allowed to remember.)

"There are some very good points in this proposal. Particularly in our current state, with women almost equally represented among our wizards whether noble or not, our Queen and many of our high lords women ruling in their own right, and a general paucity of heirs expected for at least the next generation and so the better part of the forty years, allowing women to inherit seems to me a practical necessity. The choosing of heirs based on merit has a great deal to recommend it; I do not presently require it, as my cousin and heir was before my elevation my apprentice, but especially if the resurrected prove short on heirs in the coming generation permitting selection from kin or from adopted kin could prove very practically useful. I have been told this was practiced by the old empire at the heights of its virtue, though I have not checked that history since the Thrunes fell."

"I do agree it has some serious flaws. Many of the caveats seem rather arbitrary, and I am concerned the committee may have mistaken conditions which would, in their personal view, be better for their house and its lands in a narrow case, for conditions which should be applied to all of Cheliax. Particularly, while I am neither anarchic nor evil myself, nor is my heir, I see very little case for banning anarchic alignment but not evil; either both should be banned, or neither. Many nobles are still evil though aspiring diligently not to remain so, and many of the best available adventurers for protecting counties from depredation of monsters, in my experience, are anarchic or think they may become so, so of the two I would prefer 'neither'. I do not think most disqualifying conditions for an heir, whatever we might decide they are, ought apply to sitting lords, to avoid constant disputes; additionally, such disputes ought to be resolved by ordinary courts. If there are crimes which ought to disqualify a lord from keeping his title, such as perfidy and worship of Evil gods, we ought to pass law specifying disinheritance and stripping of titles as penalties for those crimes, rather than enumerating a special list such as this which prompts a special nonjudicial review."

"And while I acknowledge full equality of laws across the archduchies may not be possible, particularly given the Hellcoast's current state where many noble duties including the archducal seat are run by other means, I do not think there is such a need to add clauses for their old traditions carrying them forward, nor for individual families to reject the overall rules. Many traditions are ancient and were current at different times in history, and those active when the resurrected died, or when the families of the returned were first exiled, were much more different than might be assumed, and of course as the Duke of Valldaura says the most recent active traditions cannot be presumed virtuous and are certainly not ancient. I think this is presently a good time to emulate Aroden's policies and 'surpass our fathers' by wiping clean the slate and implementing one code for the whole country. One which is relatively simple, but which draws on the lessons of Molthune and Galt, and the lessons from the slow decay of Taldor, which respects the state of Cheliax as she is and prepares her for the future. A, very limited, experiment which can be revised in two generations seems in the truest and most virtuous spirit of the traditions of pre-Infernal Cheliax."

"Banning both anarchic and Evil character might be reasonable, if it were possible, but in Cheliax that would require replacing nearly every baron and minor lord." Also in nearly every other country except possibly Lastwall. Most people are Evil. But he's pretty sure that's an Iomedaean heresy. "Disinheriting every minor noble at once would be far more disruptive than just prohibiting anarchic nobility. An anarchic adventurer may be suited for fighting monsters, but that does not make them suited to rule, Your Highness."

The idea of resolving disputes among nobles through the ordinary criminal courts without any special procedures is laughable enough that he's not even going to bother to address it. Though in hindsight, passing laws to disinherit Galè would probably have been easier. If the Queen ends up not approving their law that lists out punishments, maybe he can see about doing that.

"I do not agree with the whole of this proposal. I don't think anyone agrees with the whole of it, on the succession committee; it is inevitably a compromise.

"But His Grace of Valldaura is mistaken if he believes that it is better for a county to go to a nephew who is a babe in arms than a daughter who is a wizard, and in Cheliax, many men's daughters are." She wears gloves to cover the inkstains on her hands, and is far from the only one. "A simple, mechanical rule which will yield children, imbeciles, demon cultists and venal brutes is inferior to one in which men of ability may use their judgement to select an heir by blood or adoption who is capable of stopping bandits, undead, orcs, bulettes, duergar, goblins, devils and fey - all problems Viscaya and Mequinenza have faced since the fall of the Thrunes - and all of which which need a capable warrior or wizard to overcome. If chaos comes again to Cheliax, as we all pray it does not, the counts who inherit must be capable of doing their duties each and every one, and whether they are women or natural born will matter less than if they are brave and true, wise and strong, and that is what this proposal seems to achieve."

He nods along.

She had a speech, but then people said things, and now she needs to change a bunch of what she was going to say. Hopefully it's still an okay speech, but it's not going to be very polished.

"I agree with Delegate Bainilus that the law shouldn't ban Chaotic nobles and not Evil nobles. There's nothing wrong with being Chaotic. Delegate Ardiaca is Chaotic, and I'd much rather live somewhere ruled by him than by some Evil nobleman who thinks it's his right to go around hurting whoever he wants. I'm not saying we should have mobs go murder all the Evil nobles, or anything like that, but you don't need to have a mob murder them to replace them.

Delegate Pichot i Bordas just said that getting rid of all the Evil nobles would be bad because you'd have to replace a lot of people at once. Well, maybe we should try harder to find people to replace all the barons and lords with. The main reason we even need nobles is to fight monsters, maybe once we don't need the paladins to be judges anymore we can just replace all the barons with paladins, and they can fight monsters and not be Evil. That'd be bad for Delegate Pichot i Bordas, who is Evil — you can have someone check if you don't believe me — but it'd be good for everyone else who isn't going around being ruled by Evil nobles anymore.

I don't know about the rest of the law, but I say we should add an amendment to add being Evil to the list of reasons someone shouldn't be allowed to inherit."

That would be a disaster, but he's pretty sure it would so obviously be a disaster that he doesn't need to explain it.

"Seconded!" He doesn't even think that's a good idea but he bets the nobles will come up with all kinds of great insults if they have to fight about whether Evil nobles should be allowed.

Please, please do not praise me any more, person who feels the need to explicitly disclaim the need to murder evil nobles.

She's not actually against murdering Evil nobles! Would he rather she have said that instead?

"This body does not have the authority to change the laws of inheritance for the noble titles which predate it, and to even consider the possibility plants a seed of disorder that will grow into civil war unless we tear it out at the root now. The Thrunes raised a pretender to my title once, and those of you who lived under them may not realize that many powers they claimed were royal were simply stolen, and they did not possess those powers in the eyes of either gods or Law. We do not possess them now, and should not attempt to steal them.

I cannot stand idly by while that injustice is proposed again. This misbegotten law encourages fratricide and civil war in the name of order and stability. I call on the delegate who proposed this violation of venerable Law to immediately retract it, and for all to oppose it."

Yeep. How did they end up on the radical side? If they are, that suggests they're probably in the wrong.

"I understand that some titles have lapsed, that some have uncertain inheritance, and the venerable traditions associated with many of the titles may be a mystery to their current holders, their vassals, and their liege. An investigative committee, which determines what the laws and traditions are throughout Cheliax, determines the lines of succession for the titles as they are, and makes recommendations through the proper channels could be useful. Even the practice of adoption, while useful in the ancient Empire, will need to have a different form to correctly guide behavior and expectations in the current situation. I had mistakenly believed this was what the committee sought to do, and encourage the members to see themselves charged with informing and advising the nobility, not commanding it." Or else you will be replaced, he does not have to say.

- she really needs to ask Alexeara a bunch of questions about why the Church wants a weak crown. It's kind of baffling. The Church does not usually want a weak crown.

He would give a great deal to know where the aristocracy manage to find such unshakeable faith in their own importance. Perhaps he might profit by it. 

"If I may offer a correction, Delegate Fraga – the inheritance of noble titles is squarely within the remit of the constitution which this body is expected to compose. Indeed, as I've explained, the purpose of a constitution is to be the supreme law of the land, higher than the monarch and certainly higher than her vassals. What sort of law would it be if it were subordinate to every half-remembered privilege we could dig out of a century-old law book? The ancient traditions of Cheliax may certainly inspire you, but your job is to make laws for the present, not be slave to the past." 

Excellent! Go Elie, you tell those aristos what’s what! The people and the constitution are in charge now!

He... was not expecting that, and with age comes the wisdom to not immediately fire back.

"It is not slavery to hold up one's end of a bargain, and we have obligations to both past and future. We should not abandon them lightly or thoughtlessly."

He'll head to the back of the line.

The King-In-Irons grins at him as the great nobleman walks past him.

He hadn't realized quite how much he was risking when he brought this to the floor, and given how many people have spoken against it it's probably not worth chancing his committee being disbanded.

"Your Grace, the Succession Committee has spent several of its meetings investigating the laws and traditions used throughout Cheliax. In much of Cheliax, there are unclear or contradictory traditions in place, and I am worried that without further clarification we risk unrest and instability. With that being said, our committee has no intention of exercising its powers recklessly, and I am willing to withdraw this proposal until I can discuss this matter further with you."

Does it seem like the Duke is satisfied with that?

Yes, he is, with a nod of his head. But what about the rest of the line?

"Booo!" He wants them to keep fighting!

"When you are writing a new law, Baron Pichot i Bordas, I would urge you and your committee to remember that a noble's first duty has always been to protect his subjects. To rule is one way this must be done, but a dangerous land requires both rule and defense, and it is far easier to train or hire clerks and magistrates to serve a count in ruling on his behalf than to train or hire forces sufficient to defend on his behalf against, say, a coven of swamp hags or a young dragon. Perhaps Miravet and Conesa are blessed with tame farmlands and nothing worse than some roving bones improperly buried and this is no trouble, but just in Ravounel we have mountains with orcs and a dragon, a forest which has been hostile since before Aspex, and all the undead and madmen which come across the border with Nidal, and we are far from the most dangerous of the archduchies. Anarchic adventurers can be taught to rule well, or marry wives who were so taught; teaching lawful but unblooded men to fight monsters is far harder. Our laws of eligibility, when they are written, must allow for heirs who can defend their people, not just rule, and especially now must not restrain the many higher nobility with lower seats to fill from picking men who can protect them from the monsters who have been able to run amok over the last years."

The King-In-Irons will politely yield his space in line to de Fraga.

He'll applaud the archduchess's point--he was worried she would attack the nobility further, and instead she highlighted one of their key strengths--and then head to his seat. The proposal is withdrawn; they will hopefully repair it to the point that the floor, impatient as it is, will not need a lecture on the core facts underpinning inheritance, and will instead just hear a parade of short speeches in support.

Is it worth suggesting heir have to fight a lion in order to prove they are strong enough before they inherit? 

It would be cool but will they actually go for it?

Probably not worth it.

"The senior delegate from Galt can say whatever he likes, but that does not grant him the power to make it true, any more than he could rewrite the laws of Creation and set the stars in motion around Golarion. There is no law of the land higher than the Queen's will, for the Queen's will is law; likewise, no mortal, however radical, can hope to rewrite the law that is inscribed on the heart of every man. Perhaps tomorrow the senior delegate from Galt will proclaim that henceforth inheritance of titles shall be handled by lot, but he can no more transform the men he selects into true noblemen than he could transform Infrexus Thrune into a good man. And if the convention attempts to eliminate those privileges which have belonged to the nobility for time immemorial, it will be as if a cartographer sought to eliminate a river merely by failing to mark it on the map."

Even accepting the premise that nobility is some fundamental rule of the world (Thea believes strength is fundamental, but her view of strength has broadened widely these past few weeks, and nobility is secondary to that)…

Rewriting the heart of every man is probably within an Archmage’s power, it’s just scaling up charm person or suggestion or Geas to the scale of a country.  Eliminating a river should also be easily doable.  Altering the stars motion is probably beyond them, even Archmagi aren’t omnipotent, but rewriting principles of governance is more in line with a country-wide enchantment and should be doable.

...wasn't the current Archduke of the Longmarch originally a random orphan?

No, he's like Abadar's son? Can't get more noble than an aasimar.

"The will of the Queen is the highest authority in the land," the King-In-Irons says. "Very true! The Queen, however, possesses Her authority first because the beaten people of Cheliax, tortured by Infernal rule, submit to Her, and second because She and Her companions can cast teleportation circles and kill archdevils. One hears that they did.

"And third... is there a third? I don't believe there is. 'She is favored by all the gods of Good'. I suppose She is, not that archmages need gods. 'She is descended directly from Aspex himself.' Bah. Aspex had half a dozen sons and more daughters; the way nobles sleep around everyone in Cheliax is descended from him. The closest thing to a third thing is that three archmages and the Lord Inquisitor back Her, and if they prefer the law of the constitution to Her will it may well override it.

"Which brings us to everything else you said, which is completely and utterly wrong. Wish rewrites the laws of creation - as every fool knows - and I can't be the only one who knows that Mass Suggestion exists, so that's the law on the human heart taken care of. Even a wizard with my power can - and has - destroyed rivers for strategic purposes, there's Zon-Kuthon helmets for redeeming Infrexus," not that he's sure those are real but screw this guy, "and a true nobleman is one who can kill a dragon, not one whose descent js on the contractually accepted side of the blanket.

"Let us be blunt." He makes a cutting motion. "The nobility is obsolete. Superfluous. Lastwall has done without them and if does not lack the favor of the gods. Absalom does without them and it is the most god-favored city on the planet. Galt has triumphed over all enemies without a single noble-born lord to its name. The lords that the Queen has raised up may either accept their status as royal appointees and humbly kneel before the Queen who called them from the grave and the gutter and Oppara as Her loyal servants in submission to Her power and Her law, accepting whatever rules She lays on them and acting as Her delegates, or they may leave Cheliax and find some country more suitable to them. Taldor and Mendev both seem fitting, and She will appoint men who will do the duties she wishes done. Every authority that Her people grant to anyone belongs to Her and none to them, for without Her they would be slaves of Hell and without the men with books to prove their descent from Aspex they would have no one to rule them but - heroes of the Reclamation good and pure."

He smirks arrogantly and steps aside.

Clap clap clap!

—There's what helmets? Normally she's annoyed when he makes good points but right now she's distracted trying to figure out what that even is, is that — does that flip you around like Zon-Kuthon, that sounds awful—

Just because the convention isn’t primarily a loyalty test doesn’t mean he should waste such a good opportunity to show loyalty to the crown.  He joins in the clapping enthusiastically.

If the nobility in fact leave because they're being treated unconscionably the country will more or less collapse - the reason the Queen brought them back was because she did not, actually, have any better way to keep the country free of monsters, and there are not hundreds of eager would-be royal appointees waiting in the wings, or indeed any of them - but naturally Ibarra doesn't care about whether the country actually survives.

Jonatan is really spending an awfully large amount of time questioning the decision to allow Norgorber cultists a role in the government.

She really does hate it when he’s the one that makes good points.

Every court needs a jester. This one enjoys skewering Jilia's enemies so she's in favor of it being him, really.

Also, have you seen real Norgorber cultists? She'd put Ibarra in charge of Vyre if she thought he could make it stick, he's a headache but they're so much worse.

As far as he can determine being a count is a thankless, not particularly well-paying job which they are having a great deal of difficulty staffing that most of the people in this room took because it is compensated in being high-status. It seems like a serious mistake to propose lowering compensation for a job they are having trouble hiring for.

And yet nobody offered a county to Alexandre! How strange of them.

It's because he's a terrible person.

...okay we're being a tiny bit hypocritical, there.

You're not the duchess, I'm the duchess. I would object to you being a duchess. Because you're a terrible person.

You know what this seems like a good moment for?

"I would like to introduce a motion banning the worship of Norgorber. The motion would be simple and as follows: the worship of Norgorber is hereby prohibited throughout Cheliax. The default penalty is exile from Cheliax."

"You need to put it through a committee!"

"You are mistaken, Norgorber cultist! We agreed that to be binding, a resolution must go through committee. But then Her Majesty clarified that no laws we pass are binding, but are merely recommendations to her; therefore, they need not go through committee."

He laughs.

....are you really going to cede "the queen shouldn't consider anything we pass a serious request for a law" in order to non-bindingly burn Ibarra?

Ooh, he didn't even think of that! Time to get in line.

"I had hoped the matter settled for now, but if Delegate Ibarra insists on sowing confusion then I must respond.

As befits someone so morally bankrupt, Delegate Ibarra asks you to only consider questions of might. Could the Queen strike any of us down? I do not doubt it. But only Gorum and Norgorber would see that as the final word on the matter. In the eyes of the good gods and men, what matters is why someone takes an action as well as what action they take. If the Queen arbitrarily strips titles from their holders, it would be tyranny, plain and simple. These are not temporary appointments; they are a sacred bond between lands and families. To rule, a man must set aside the life he would otherwise live and give himself over to the realm, and bind his children likewise. He must stand in defense of the land and its peoples; he must shepherd their development; he must be a virtuous example to all who observe him. It is as deep and permanent a bond as parenthood.

The president of this convention--far superior to Delegate Ibarra in every respect--asked you at the opening of this convention to consider questions of freedom, dignity, and happiness, not just for yourselves, but also for your children, and your children's children; your whole line. Freedom rests on predictable consequences, on clear law and upheld agreements. Dignity rests on legitimacy and propriety. Happiness rests on peace and security. Ibarra instead proposes anarchy, pride, and arbitrary rule backed by arcane enchantments instead of the justified love of a free people for their rightful and responsible sovereign.

I remind you that the Queen conquered Cheliax not just to restore herself to her rightful throne, but to liberate all of you from tyranny. She called this convention as a demonstration of just how far the modern Cheliax is from Infernal Cheliax; she neither wants nor expects slavish obedience from us. On the opening of this convention, she asked you to balance liberty with justice with security with compassion. It does not increase the freedom of a realm for it to be devoured by monsters; it does not increase the justice of a realm to promise something and then change one's mind; it does not encourage security to replace protectors with clearly delineated realms and responsibilities with roving bands of monster-hunters, and it is not compassionate to cast out those with experience of realms not tortured by Hell.

Thankfully, the ancients have given us a tradition that better balances those four concerns: hereditary nobility is the stablest form of human government yet found. Predictability and immutability of inheritance allows for investment in future rulers instead of competition between them. Stability of rule encourages investment for the future and repays investments made in the past. Nobles tied to realms are encouraged to deep familiarity with them, their people, and their woes, not the transient relationships and contracts of a teleport wizard. A Galtan administrator can paper over problems and hope to be promoted away from them, but a landed noble cannot leave them to fester, as on the morrow it will still be their problem or their son's problem. For proper nobility, when their people suffer, they suffer; when their people prosper, they prosper. What better inducement to compassion could there be?

Let other countries experiment, and let us see the results of their experiments in forty years when we meet again. But make no mistake, Cheliax needs the nobility it has now, and suffers from having too few, not too many. The riots drove away the Lord Mayor of Westcrown, a transplant without blood ties to Cheliax; where is the royal appointment to do the duties Her Majesty wishes done? The Queen and her companions did not resurrect and restore so many nobility on a whim, but rather because it was both the right thing to do and we are sorely needed. Those immigrants who have come to participate in our great work should be applauded and appreciated, and it is an insult to suggest they are easily replaced, rather than making a sacrifice for the good of Cheliax.

And neither were we all as helpless as Delegate Ibarra suggests. I fought the Thrunes in Galt; I fought the Thrunes in Andoran; I was sharpening my skills and forces at the Worldwound to be ready to fight the Thrunes in the Heartlands, when the time came. I am eternally grateful to the Queen and President for bringing down the Thrunes, and for clearing the pretender from my seat, but I have worn the ducal coronet of Fraga ever since the death of my father, not simply for the last year and a half. I was recognized, not appointed, and that means something. I spent decades saving, training, and planning, hoping that I would be the one to help Cheliax rebuild itself, to overcome and surpass its past. I spent the last decade preparing my son to take up that obligation if I died first. And I hear that the nobility are obsolete? What ignorance and ingratitude."

Didn't the Queen already arbitrarily strip a bunch of people's titles? Or does it not count as doing that if she killed most of them?

It’s a nice speech with some nice arguments, Fernando even agrees with most of it.  But he can’t help but sarcastically and bitterly note that it just so happens that the best form of government happens to be one the that puts the Duke in a position of power and privilege.

Also Fernando is pretty sure that Absalom has existed for like, millennia, and isn’t governed primarily by nobility, so the Duke’s point about stability isn’t even factually correct.

But… this entire argument is kind of moot.  When Valia brought up the idea of ridding the country of nobility (and not even all nobility, just evil nobility) the Archmage shut the idea down… and Valia was de facto exiled for the actions of a bunch of unrelated riots.  And in between the Counts and above directly given delegate seats, Barons and such that won elections (in hindsight Fernando can admit he had some luck to getting elected), and bribed or otherwise influenced sortition delegates, nobility of some form controls over half the vote.

The King-In-Irons strides to the podium. As he does, he pulls a large, heavy volume out of a beltpurse that doesn't look large enough to hold it and lays it flat on the podium with a crack. 

"Ignorance and ingratitude." He tastes the words, flipping the book open and letting its pages rustle in the air as he flips it over. "Very true. You are an ignorant man, Your Grace, and an ungrateful one. I am pleased to hear that you agree. I am most grateful to Her Majesty, of course, but I am also grateful to Iomedae, the goddess who sponsored her, and well aware of what she has to say on this topic - for you have made so many claims that I could hardly refuse them all if I spent the entire day at it, in spite of my own learning.

"So I'll have to let the goddess do that for me."

And then he speaks. He doesn't need the book - this is poetry, easier to memorize than any of the many complex texts Chelish schoolboys are meant to devour and regurgitate and forget at their masters' command, and the thundering syllables of the Acts ring out, rhyme and meter and alliteration filling the chamber as the words of the long-dead paladin take from, and the goddess speaks through Alexandre - 

"- Or, for those who have trouble with Menadorian-Opparan Taldane and would prefer it in plain Chelish Avistani, 'If Lastwall succeeds and my country thrives, there are people who will say that I only pulled off building a system that isn't aristocratic because I'm a god, but they're wrong and un-Arodenite to boot,'" (he pulls out another thick book), "'because anyone could do what I did if they really tried and if we just keep using systems like hereditary noble rule instead rule of the best because our grandfathers did them, we're dooming ourselves to never improve and betraying Aroden's instructions to build Axis on Golarion.' Now, then, was His Grace an open denier of Iomedae, or just ignorant of the words she wrote?"

With a thump, the second book lands on the podium and he whips through the pages. Now he's reading in old Azlanti-Taldane, and it is a god whose words ring out. "- And to translate, that is Aroden saying just about the same thing that Iomedae said on the topic of Absalom. Except without the appeal to him, since he was just an archmage at the time."

"I could start pasting the Placards of Wisdom on the walls -" the packet of thin slips lands on the table with the two great tomes "- but I don't think I need to to claim that every human-ascended god is with me. So, Your Grace. Aroden built a thriving state that can outfight and has outfought the greatest empires and archmages. Iomedae built a thriving state that is keeping Tar-Baphon sealed, beating the orcs of Belkzen, holding the southern Worldwound and sending the Glorious Reclamation as an army to save Cheliax. Neither of these faces the persistent civil wars that remind us why Taldane politics is considered such a thriving model of virtue and decorum the world over."

"The nobility is obsolete."

She's so tired of him making good points, even if he's just copying them from Iomedae. 

The part with complicated foreign poetry was pretty boring but the part where he insulted the fancy duke was really funny! Clap clap clap!

He's not about to rush a proposal to exile Norgorber cultists when he just spoke with the Lord Marshal about the risks of moving hastily with regards to outlawing the worship of Evil powers, but he won't pretend that it isn't tempting.

He's already stepped back from the podium, but maybe Ibarra essentially calling for the abolishment of the nobility will make it easier to persuade the Duke of Fraga and his associates to support his next draft. No one wants that.

Delegate Ibarra quoted Iomedae, so he should clap for him right?  Clap, clap.

He had thought Lastwall had nobility also, but maybe it actually just puts Paladins in charge of everything?  Why didn’t the Queen do that in Cheliax?  Not enough Paladins?

This is so useful for getting all the conservatives on board with her power grab for the nobility planned for tomorrow. 

Ibarra is not wrong but the time to say it is in forty years, not now.

Of course this is how liberty dies, to the votes of a thousand ticked-off nobles enraged by one guy who couldn't keep his mouth shut.

Aspexia-Isona isn't in favor of persecuting innocently Evil people but she thinks they should probably hang Ibarra. Fraga is the one being sensible here.

With a decent number of bribed sortition delegates and elected Barons, Dia figures the nobles actually have a majority, albeit a weak loose one fractured across several divides.  So any outright abolish-the-nobility proposals are doomed to fail. 

Delegate Ibarra should be able to realize this, so he must have some other plan.  Maybe he’s acting on false pretenses on behalf of the nobles, as an obnoxious common enemy to unite them?  That reminds her, she should talk to Victoria…

That was some excellent poetry reading, got the Old Taldane pronunciation right and everything. 

(Also, down with the aristocracy and up with the republic, rah. Of course.)

Those are some fancy speeches but they’re all not about the important thing, which is that they can propose things that the convention actually wants without having to get the approval of the duchess of Chelam and her supporters first.

“I must oppose in the strongest terms this effort to remove the nobility; their positions are their by right, and even were they not it would be the basest ingratitude to deny them their proper dues after everything they do for cheliax. But today I will go a step further, for it is not just the nobility who do great and important work on the behalf of our queen; I stand in a room with six hundred such men and women.

”As such, I move that we request of the queen that she afford certain privileges to the distinguished delegates of the constitutional convention and their families, in recognition of the great services they have done for the chelish nation. Those chosen as delegates and their families should be exempt from conscription except for legislative duties or their vassal oaths, exempt from billeting of troops, free of the tax on salt and wine, and should have the right to bear their own coat of arms. As they have been served in the highest body of Chelish government, they ought to qualify for lesser royal positions as well, and to be subject to the judgment in court by only those royal officers. Delegates should also for their own person to have precedence in formal matters over all of the same rank, though not those of higher standing, and count as knights for sumptuary rules unless their own position is greater."

The madhouse has not stopped being mad, has it.

"Exempt from all taxes!" shouts a man in the audience.

She’s not going to encourage proposals that haven’t gone through committees, and she doesn’t want to get labeled an avaricious delegate, so she isn’t going to second it, but she will try to get some clapping going.  Maybe someone else will second it and/or a committee will take it up?

Clap, clap.