Very sensible, Fernando nods along.  The Archduchess clearly picked the right person to put in a position of (apparent) leadership!

She kinda wanted the avaricious commoner vote as a weapon of last resort against the nobility, but they are on net a liability so Thea also nods along.

Which is be a good pitch! Well, except for how she expects half the room doesn't like either the army or the orphanages, which means she absolutely has to say something.

"And it's an even worse deal than it used to be. The army commitee is working on making the army actually obey the rules and do what it's supposed to - fight monsters and bandits, like they do in other countries. We've got paladins and soldiers and a few of the nobles who actually know how to fight working on it. But there's not any committee on nobles that's going to make rules saying their men can't go into the nearest town and grab some girls to have fun, or robbing people of their stuff, or spending their time getting drunk and gambling."

"Rights is — trying — with some of that. But it's really hard to solve just with laws, and even if a law would be good that doesn't mean we can get it past the floor."

"And even if it does, if the queen doesn't have an army. Well. A lot more people are going to figure they don't have to listen to her."

"...doesn't she, uh, have an army? And some archmages?"

Honestly for someone who just started being Evil Delegate Rado seems surprisingly reasonable? Maybe she was right on the edge, and then she did something a little Evil, and it tipped her over? ...That's surprisingly upsetting to think about, actually, that there could be something tiny that ended up making the difference—

"She does right now. But if there aren't any taxes, then she won't have much of an army for very long; it's hard to have soldiers if you can't pay them, and even the ones that stay are going to do more banditry to make up for it. Maybe the archmages can make up for some of that, but there's a reason they needed the Galtans and the Rahadoumi and the Reclamation in the first place, and I'd rather not count on them sticking around forever."

"Oh, sorry, I got confused about what you were saying, I didn't realize you were just saying we shouldn't vote to not have taxes on delegates."

"It sounds like we're all agreed on that, at any rate. Anything else we wanted to discuss?" He would kind of like to stop being in this room.

“Are we going to make these meetings a periodic thing?  Or maybe before major votes?  If we all work together to keep an eye on the transcripts we can spot big votes before they come up even if none of us are on the relevant committee.”

Korva also doesn't really want to be here, though she can't really leave until other people mostly do, too. Unfortunately this has not been very good at building any sense that this is a reasonable longstanding group.

"I'd be interested in seeing your legislature draft," she says to Fernando. "I suppose it's in the transcripts. I will talk to Conde Fazil about what provisions about unfair debts the Abadarans will be willing to sign off on, thank you Sower. I think drafting for laws about unfair contract terms is either rights or judiciary, insofar as anything about contracts requires having civil courts to make rulings about them. 

As far as I can tell major votes seem to happen every day, but it's still good to know which votes each day are going to be the important ones. I think we also want to talk to more people, if we want more votes, rather than seizing on only this group just because we were at the first meeting. In particular I would appreciate knowing more about what the churches of Erastil and Pharasma want, as groups, in case there's anything else there we haven't thought of; they're quite a lot of people, and I expect the things they want are mostly very sensible."

"I can see about speaking to the other Sowers."

“I can try to talk to the pharasmins, you’re right that this is an important priority.”

“I have a copy on me, although I’ve already got some pretty major changes in progress for my second draft.  The biggest thing I have yet to add is assigned responsibilities to the Queen, the legislature, and the subdivisions of the legislature.  So any input there will be appreciated.”

"All right, I'll look it over. I think we can't throw support behind each other until we have some drafts to support, or at least to take apart and rebuild, so you're ahead of me there. I'll try writing something up to address the orphanage crisis and see what people think there. Maybe anybody who writes up a proposal or has one going out to the floor soon can reach out again to have another meeting - early in the evening, I think, if people can make it. Then we can talk about whether it has any issues, and have time to reach out to other people about supporting it, if we have something we're excited about."

So she needs to keep working at networking, but this meeting was some progress on that front.

She gives a firm nod to Korva.

"I expect this room to be free most nights if anyone sensible wants to use it to strategize in smaller numbers, and other rooms if it isn't. For those who aren't sensible or invited by those who are, the taproom will still be open."

(Victòria quietly asks Raimon if he can Scriven off a copy for her.)

Sure, if the room's stocked with blank paper.

She has paper! She's been spending some of the stipend on it so she can take notes at the convention.

He'll scriven it off, then. Anybody else want one?