The footman guides him to a sitting room and then shuts the door when Her Majesty waves him away.

"Elie. I hear I'm expecting you. What is it?"

"Oh, I just remembered I'd been promised a constitutional convention. I thought I'd stop by and ask – when?" 

"Whenever you're ready to arrange and preside over one, of course. I won't say it wouldn't be more convenient to wait another six months to resolve the Molthune question, and the Ravounel question, and the Heartlands question, and for Naima to finish raising everyone on her list -

...Six months would be a lot more convenient. A year would be even better. But if you're ready now and don't want to wait, word can go out tomorrow for local assemblies to start picking delegates. Or, if not tomorrow, as soon as we're agreed on exactly how the delegates are to be picked."

"The Molthune question and the Ravounel question and the Heartlands question seem like just the sort of things your citizens should have a say in, don't you think? And, speaking of your citizens – I'm not one. Even if I wanted to run this particular circus, it wouldn't be my place." 

"The president of the convention will need to be someone who is respected, good, and honorable, and ideally who cares about Cheliax having a constitution or at least understands why we're having a convention about it instead of me just informing everyone of the contents. Do you happen to know many Chelish citizens who that describes?"

...time for a Private Sanctum.

"I'd hoped you'd have come across someone, these past hundred years. One of the Pezzacki rebels, maybe? I recall they were attempting some sort of local self-government. We could ask those insurgents we resurrected in Ravounel, or one of Naima's people from before the civil war. Or perhaps there's some ancient exile living in Andoran but longing to return – "

She starts counting off on her fingers. "Michaud - final blade, Jubbanich - final blade, Cardona's evil, Bernat's been dead forty years and isn't accepting raises, Albert-Sala's evil and dead. Anyone from Pezzack would be a complete unknown, the factions would walk all over them. Jackdaw's going to refuse to send a representative, let alone preside over the thing. Shawil wants a theocracy, Cansellarion wants a different theocracy and maybe a civil war, Karga would argue for banning all the gods and relying on - Naima, I suppose - for healing the entire country. Most of the people Naima raises from before the civil war had been avoiding any news about Cheliax for the last century because it was all too depressing. Morgethai's busy.

There's not anyone who'd do better than you. If you're too busy right now, we can wait until you have the time to do it right."

"I'm not Chelish. I know we don't have any good options. Even if we did I'd still expect this project to fail – but I do believe it matters that thing we are attempting, at which we almost certainly will not succeed, is inculcating in the Chelish people any sense that they can be the masters of their own fate. Putting a foreign archmage in charge of the proceedings would be giving up before we've begun."

"Would it? Anyone I select will be at least chosen by a foreign archmage. Almost anyone I choose will be widely assumed to have been picked for loyalty, to be speaking on my behalf. There's very little we can do to change anyone's sense of whether the Chelish people control their own fate, beyond changing the reality of whether they do. Are you intending to be a tyrant, using your power as president to dictate articles for the convention to ratify?"

"Of course not. I intend to let them propose and ratify whatever mockery of republican governance they come up with their very own selves, and I don't think they'll any of them for a moment believe me." 

"Find me someone Chelish who'd accept the position, be able to carry out its duties, and not be a petty tyrant about it and I will gladly appoint them in your stead. Better for the convention to wrongly expect you to push your favored constitution than rightly expect someone else to push theirs, and who knows? Maybe after the first week some of them will even believe you."

"You're the expert on Chelish people, but I'll look. There must be someone more suitable. 

...You know my record with constitutional conventions." 

"As terrible as any such," she acknowledges.

He's gotten better at remembering that Alfirin isn't Catherine, but it doesn't help when she decides to play the benevolent empress. 

"I'm already known as a rebel and a traitor in my homeland. Do you really expect these strange people to trust me?"

"Many of them wouldn't trust their own mothers, and many of those would be right to not."

"Didn't you say being respected was one of my qualifications?"

"I did. Respect and trust don't always go hand-in-hand here. This can work with someone they don't trust. It won't work with someone they don't respect."

"These people don't understand respect. Just fear."

"That might be an argument for putting off the convention, but it's not one for someone other than you presiding over it."

"You'd think I could terrify them well enough by proxy."

"Not if they imagine they can get something past your proxy so it never comes to your attention, that they wouldn't dare to try to get past you in your own person. There really isn't anyone else who'd do as well."

"... I need to talk to Naima." 

"Of course. Please give her my regards, and send the finance minister in on your way out."

"Get him yourself."

And he's gone. 

It doesn't take Naima long to notice, after she gets home from work, that Elie looks unusually miserable. 

"Something happen?"

"I spoke with Alfirin about the constitutional convention."

"And it went poorly? Or you're just not looking forward to what you're likely to get out of it?"

"Would you believe that she expects me to run it myself?"

" - well, aren't you planning to?"

"Oh, not you too. You really don't think there's a single Chelish person living or dead who's qualified?"

"Well, what makes someone qualified? They'd have to care about democracy, or about producing a constitution, which on its own disqualifies nearly everyone in the world outside of Galt and maybe Andoran, and certainly nearly everyone in Cheliax. They'd have to have any practical idea how to run a convention, which disqualifies even more. They'd have to be strong enough not to be pushed around, and yet not associated with the old regime, and yet taken seriously by people who have only ever known the old regime. There are people we could claim meet enough of those to try, but none who are likely to actually succeed, especially at producing something we won't all want to burn."

"I'm sure we'll want to burn whatever comes out of this no matter who's in charge."

"Well, then why do you want to do it at all?"

"The last time I was sure I couldn't do anything to fix Cheliax, I was rather badly wrong. That's one reason. 

And it's not so different now, is it? One doesn't do these things because they're likely to succeed. If I wanted to impose the form of government I think is best short of abolishing the monarchy altogether, I probably could. Alfirin would listen to me. She owes me that much. The only reason she isn't part of the library right now is because I thought it was worth handing her a country and all the people in it – and that's the other. The only reason I've ever wanted to involve myself in politics is because I want people to be free, and Cheliax isn't. Free from Hell, yes, but – "

Here on the material plane, I want to try to do more than changing one tyrant for another.

"And all of that is fair, but I am baffled about how you expect appointing someone else to make Cheliax more free than if you take ownership of the process and see that the process actually occurs. Anyone else put in charge of this operation will not be doing it because they freely chose to. They will be doing it because you insisted. And if you're going to insist on it, because it's important to you, then I don't see why you're not willing to run it and give it the best possible chance of actually occurring, or of being given anything like a fair and honest attempt, as opposed to a simulacrum of an attempt that is primarily aimed at placating you."

Of course Naima's arguments are better than Alfirin's. 

"Because I very very badly don't want to?"

"Well, I don't want to go to work every morning, but if I don't then hundreds of people will die, and many more will suffer needlessly. You have been given the opportunity to accomplish - not that which is most important to you, I realize that it's depressing for you that Cheliax has the opportunity to attempt democratic rule and Galt does not, but something very close to it. But if you want to actually have it, you have to do the part where you make it happen, if you are the person best qualified to see it through. Even if you very very badly don't want to."

"Is there anything I can do to make it easier for you?"

He wishes, very sharply, that his old friends were still alive. Lucien and Gabriel would understand what he was trying to do – but then, Lucien wouldn't forgive him for compromising with tyrants, and Gabriel would laugh and tell him to write the damn constitution himself if he cared so much. It would be yet another political headache, in any case. The last thing he needs right now is a tussle with Cyprian.

"I'd say that it's impossible, but you've worked miracles before." 

"Impossible to have what you want, or impossible to make you less miserable? I'm sure we can at least make you slightly less miserable."

"It's not going to be easy however I feel about it, and you're right that I should just stop feeling sorry for myself." 

"Well, you can certainly feel sorry for yourself if it helps. I do it all the time. But it does, ultimately, fall to you to see that any process meeting your standards for legitimacy or usefulness occurs. And that way, even if you do get a constitution you want to burn at the end of it, at least you will have given everyone involved some vital guidance about what making their own political decisions would even look like, which they can call upon the next time it's needed."

"There are some people who'd think it's very funny that I'm supposed to have any guidance to offer on practice of government." 

"I'm sure, but none of them are in this room. Elie - "

"I have never seen you try to build a government. Possibly you are actually terrible at it. But I have seen you offer space and agency and the freedom to make choices to people who were scared and hurting and who didn't really know how to use these things, and continue offering it until they did. I have watched you raise your children in ways that would never occur to anyone else, because no one else would care about the children's desires if it seemed to them that the children wanted stupid things. I have watched you argue with Saira about whether you could have yourself declared incompetent to protect your wife from the possibility of your becoming more tyrannical later in life. You are willing to listen to people and avoid imposing your own will on them, even when their will is stupid, and even when this makes you look stupid. And, importantly, you are not, actually, stupid, you are possessed of sounder judgement - and far more hard-won experience - than pretty much any of the pre-infernal nobles I have talked to and raised and made much of the backbone of the current government. And you are the only person I can think of who will not respond to a bunch of patently stupid ideas by outright overruling them and replacing them with something you like better. Or, well, at least the only person who will do it out of principle and not out of fear."

"Maybe it will go up in flames. Maybe it will go up in such flames that it will tarnish the concept of democracy further and everyone will continue never taking it seriously. But everyone already doesn't take it seriously! So unless you actually believe that democracy is a stupid idea that you should never have bothered with, and that the people of Cheliax don't deserve a say in how they're ruled, in which case you should not force them to go through the motions of something you think will turn into a flaming mess no matter what anyone does - I think you owe it to them to create a space where anyone can actually discuss what giving them a hand in their own destiny might look like. And I think you owe it to yourself, to see the thing you care about through, and if it fails at least know why and how it failed, so that you can learn about what things do and don't work."

Leave it to Naima to make "nobody cares about the central preoccupation of your adult life" sound, somehow, comforting. 

"Thank you. I do hope I'll learn something about republican government, I hope much more devoutly that I will never again in my life have the opportunity to put that knowledge to use. Well. In my natural life, maybe – I might feel differently in a hundred years – but if I'm doing anything right at all everything I know would be hopelessly behind the times. Wouldn't that be wonderful? I can just imagine the grandchildren lecturing me about how restricting the franchise to the living is a relic of the old regime – 

– That's all I really want, you know. Just to keep doing the job badly for long enough that someone relieves me of it out of sheer exasperation." 

"I think you are pretty likely to get this eventually. But you will get it faster if you introduce people to the idea that it is a job that can be done."

"Eventually. Two generations might be optimistic." 

"Well, however many years it would take, it will take fewer the sooner people start seriously thinking about it."

"Enough. You've convinced me I should do it, or at least that nobody else well. Even if my primary qualification is that I both can and won't force the whole nation of Cheliax to accept whatever provisions I dictate." 

"Good! Now what do you need. I'm not actually very clear on how one goes about organizing a constitutional convention."

"In Galt, one begins by assembling the nobility along with elected representatives from each town with a local parliament, which are of course ancient and numerous. In Cheliax – I have no idea. Roll knucklebones on a list of tax-payers and hope for the best?"

"Well, you can assemble the nobility easily enough. Once I've checked with Catherine that all of the necessary positions are filled with people who are not particularly committed to the service of hell, anyway."

"Catherine could have done it. We had our differences, politically, but if I'm already compromising on a constitutional monarchy – I don't suppose it could be done?"

"Do you want to talk to her about it? I talk to her about noble stuff all the time, I'm sure she has opinions."

"We'd better. She at least deserves to know what's going on."

"Sure. Should we circle the whole group, I hear Shawil is being made a noble. And at that point it seems sort of rude to leave Ione out. I suppose we might want to set up multiple meetings, though, with not all of us being equally on speaking terms..."

"Everyone except Alfirin, then? In any case it's probably good practice to start out without the monarch present, she'll have enough of a say in things as it is." 

"All right, I shall see that they're invited. Where do you think, here? I suppose here is the easiest place. We don't have the others over nearly often enough anyway."

"Lovely. We'll make it a dinner party. That's how all serious matters of state are handled in Galt." 

"How civilized."

So, a few days later, Naima will invite Shawil, Ione, and a ghostly Catherine to their home, for the purpose of discussing how to set up a constitutional convention. Unfortunate how Catherine can't actually eat the food without Alfirin also present; they're still working on fixing that. 

"All right," says Naima, when she's eaten two bites, "I have a guess at a preliminary model for assigning seats, but I think perhaps Elie and Catherine should start us off, as the only ones among us with firsthand experience of the process."

"Well, in Galt we had a mix of the local nobility, and representatives of the good churches, and representatives elected by the people. We've replaced the Chelish nobility, and brought back the good chuches, but I don't know what to expect from the people, if we let them choose delegates, and I'm a little bit worried about that."

"The nobility and the good churches were installed by us – if we limit the convention to them we might as well write the thing ourselves.

I'm going to – actually, I'm going to suggest we leave the nobility out of it, and the rest of you are going to overrule me, so let's advance directly to my second proposal: we ought to extend one third of the seats to the nobles and the church together, one third to elected representatives, and one third chosen by sortition." 

"Before I agree, I'd appreciate it if you could explain what 'sortition' is."

"Drawing lots." 

"That... seems like a lot of work for unclear benefit. How complete is the census?"

"Not, but I have been collecting school records, and I suspect we can assemble those or combine the two into something usable. Redraw anyone who happens to have died since their last recorded contact with the state, I suppose. Of course, school records will only get you the populations that attend school, if it's important to you to include gnomes or dwarves."

"They paid taxes, didn't they? That will help. It'll be work but it's work we'll need to do anyway if we're to have elections – and I do think it's worth having elections – but I share the concern that anyone who can manage to bribe or bully their way to a seat won't be worthy of it."

"It seems to me that elections are going to be an enormous hassle and result in a large number of delegates relying on old power networks to get into places we don't particularly want them, but I don't very well see how you can claim to be practicing democracy without them. And it's at least possible that some of the people selected will know what they're doing. I support Elie's second proposal, except that I think many of the good churches are currently de facto led by non-Chelish foreigners, which seems like a problem, and that I think you should give seats to some organizations that have continuity going back more than nine months that aren't noble houses. I think you should give the druids a seat, and plausibly the hellknight orders we didn't disband."

"Do the druids want seats? Don't they have to shun cities and governments?"

"Mazal didn't. I think under normal circumstances they actually interface with farmers on a fairly regular basis, and Cheliax has simply spent a century banning them from polite society. I'd like to at least let them know that the ban is over, especially since they'll be of tremendous help feeding people until the Church of Erastil recovers. I'll invite them personally, if you like, and if they say no at least we'll have extended them the opportunity."

"Some of the universities predate the civil war – and not just the ones with resident archmages, either. Even in Galt they had a little independence." 

"I did think of that, but I'm not sure they're currently full of either anti-Asmodean sentiment or any particular competence. Maybe the academy in Kintargo, but on the whole I'm not sure how much they help us."

"I don't know if they help us at all, but we have limited options for institutions which have a historical presence in Cheliax and are merely infested with diabolism instead of being built on it from the ground up." 

"I'm not sure I fully understand what you're hoping for here in terms of actual qualifications, but if I know academians, plenty will be happy to attend just for a chance to argue for how their pet theory is not only applicable to the topic at hand, but the perfect and only solution to whatever problem it is. It would at least dilute the population proposing Asmodeanism-by-any-other-name."

Shawil has been mostly silent, content to let the others argue the specifics. It isn't his country, after all, at least not in the same way it's Catherine's or Élie's. But once the more opinionated guests leave a lull for Ione, he waits for her to finish before clearing his throat.

"So far I've only heard mention of the Good churches. If we're going to have representatives from the gods, I expect Abadar's followers to be invited. Especially since they're going to be taking on a large role in the rebuilding process. And simply as a practical matter, having a Lawful—and also not Evil—institution involved in the country, especially when writing laws, will be useful."

"There shouldn't be any problem with Abadar's church sending some representatives, as long as they aren't themselves evil." Catherine is personally skeptical of the Abadarans' ability to legislate on any matter besides commercial ones, but if they exclude everyone with dubious legislative talents they won't have much of a convention left. She keeps her skepticism to herself, so as to not needlessly antagonize Shawil. "Not that I would expect Abadar to be unrepresented even without their own allotment of delegates, unless the Count of Egorian is disinclined to attend?"

"No, I think evil will already be quite well-represented."

"I myself am not a Cleric of Abadar." The past few years have dulled the pain of this fact, though it is still a bit of a sore spot with him. "And I am not an expert in crafting laws myself. More of an enforcer. Not that I expect they'll be doing the writing, but I think it would be helpful to have some people with their perspective."

"Having representatives from non-Evil Lawful churches advising in the matter of how to establish non-Evil Law seems eminently reasonable to me."

"If we are inviting churches, we'll need a list of which ones. Do we have any particularly principled way of deciding, or are we just inviting all the ones we like?"

"We might want to set a minimum number of adherents in Cheliax. Are there any major non-Evil churches we specifically want to exclude?"

"I suppose that depends on how we feel about Gorum and Calistria. There's good reason to argue for Pharasma, Nethys, and Gozreh; they're the only churches who we know had clerics able to avoid detection before nine months ago. Relatedly, of course, they're fairly disorganized."

"I'm a bit worried about Calistrian priests disrupting the proceedings if invited in...Gorum's church seems like less of a problem. Nethysians it depends on exactly how mad the individual priests are. Pharasmins and Gozrens seem like good inclusions."

"I'm not sure how much interest Gorumites or Calistrians would have in a constitutional convention anyway. Seems to me that any of them actually committed enough to show up and participate may as well be permitted to? If anyone's disruptive they can be ejected."

"Individual worshippers are fine. Individual priests might even be fine, but if we extend an invitation for representatives of the church as a whole -

I expect Calistrians to have a particular position on matters like 'What, exactly, should be done to the old nobility' and 'What, exactly, should be done to the old tax collectors' and the same for schoolmasters and city guardsmen and shopkeepers and slaveowners and... There's a lot of vengeance to go around, and I don't think it will actually help anything and I don't want them pushing it."

"I don't think we have – I don't think there can be – a principled way to exclude delegates for wanting bloody vengeance, or even for having a sincere philosophical commitment to bloody vengeance.  We don't have to give it to them. This isn't a courtroom; you've already issued your pardons. But the issue will rise whatever we do, and I think better to face it in the convention than in the streets."

It's not a hypothetical: of the people who died in Corentyn and Ostenso and Egorian, they still don't know how many were casualties of war and how many of opportunistic murder. The occupation has kept things calm in the cities, but it's impossible to keep track of every country priests burnt with his holy books or barons torn apart and fed to his own dogs. (Though it seems like fewer than he expected, really. Things could be much worse. Catherine, of all people, doesn't need to be reminded of that). 

"I am not saying that we should exclude anyone who wants bloody vengeance, which I agree would be hard to do in a principled manner. I am only suggesting that we should not go out of our way to reserve a number of seats for the servants of the goddess of bloody vengeance."

"We could announce that there is to be a constitutional convention, and that any representatives of non-Evil religious communities in Cheliax who wish to attend should register their interest. And if no Calistrians sign up then we don't have to worry about it, and if any do, we can assess how much trouble they're likely to make then. If we need to, we can declare that they weren't a large enough contingent to merit an invitation or something. And I suppose if it turns out that half the nation of Cheliax has been worshipping Calistria in secret and will rebel if their goddess is snubbed, then we can have a chance to learn that ahead of time."

"Oh, they're worshipping lots of people in secret, but good luck getting them to tell us which ones. Calistrian shrines are represented in some of the old Asmodean temples, though, she at least wasn't unknown under the old regime."

"I expect the secret Calistria-worshippers to be more capable of understanding and articulating their true desires than almost anybody else in Cheliax. Another reason not to exclude them preemptively." 

"So long as we're not reserving seats for their church in advance I see no reason to do anything to actively exclude them."

"It seems awkward to reserve seats for everyone but them. How many seats are you giving to churches, anyway?"

"Hardly everyone. Milani's church, and Iomedae's, and Pharasma and Abadar and Cayden and Desna and Erastil and Gozreh and Shelyn.

...so, merely nearly everyone. I take your point. I think Ione's solution was good? We can put out a general notice, and then follow that up with invitations to the churches that we want represented and to those that have sufficient popular support."

"I don't object. What do we think of relative proportions?" 

"I would do one each, if you want to keep the nobles and the churches together to one third of the delegates, but it sounds like other people are envisioning giving them more seats than that. How many delegates are we aiming for, exactly?"

"A thousand, perhaps? I would argue for even quarters nobility, clergy, elected, and by lots - so that would be... twenty-five or so per church?"

Naima barks a laugh, and then realizes that this is very rude of her.

" - I am not sure you will be able to find two hundred and fifty total clerics in the country who are both Chelish and in possession of a basic understanding of their church's core theology. - actually, no, you will, but two hundred of them will be Pharasmins."

"A thousand total sounds about right – we should probably figure out something on a per county basis, but the Galtan assembly was 600-odd and Cheliax is larger. ....and much as I like the idea of inviting two hundred illiterate village midwives, I think we should fold the clergy in with the nobility." 

"Hmm... I think having relatively few clergy would not be a problem if the convention were voting by order, but I am sure Élie thinks it should vote by head... A thousand might be too many, then. I think without a sizable fraction of delegates coming from the churches we won't have enough good people present, so I'd rather shrink whole the convention while keeping the same fraction of clergy and picked nobles than shrinking the fraction of clergy while keeping the same size of convention."

"If you'll concede on voting by head, I can agree to that – though I don't think we have the room to insist on too much goodness even among the picked delegates." 

"Two hundred and fifty nobility is also more nobility than we've actually replaced. Or vetted. Or particularly thought about for more than five minutes. We get into barons, at that number, and the barons are mostly the very same people they were one year ago. I do not want to invite one hundred of those people for the sake of making the numbers pretty, and I agree with Catherine that we want to make the convention smaller than a thousand for the sake of avoiding that."

"Six hundred, then? Of course, we can always cut back on the number of nobles." 

"That effectively increases the percentage of people in the room who were not at any point vetted for having anything resembling a sense of decency. I would do four hundred and fifty, but six hundred is probably doable. All counts and above attend in their capacity as counts, which is nearly a quarter of six hundred. Then you invite either around fifty or one hundred and fifty clerics, and either one hundred and fifty or two hundred of each of sortition delegates and elected delegates. Elected delegates and nobility go by county, clerics go by church, and sortition delegates can if we wish be selected from the entire population. Special delegates are special, and I think we extend exactly one seat to each additional organization. It won't be pretty, but I think it will be better than a thousand, at least."

"That sounds good to me. I think for elected delegates we ought to mostly stick to existing regional divisions - or at least the ones we're recognizing and keeping - which would suggest one per county. And then if we want the same number drawn by lot... this suggests six hundred rather than four and a half? Though it sounds like we'd still be short on qualified clergy, and by more than we can easily make up with Hellknights and other orders. Perhaps in light of the situation on the ground we should allow each church to send one delegate from outside of Cheliax, or we might invite a delegation from Molthune if they're interested in reunification..."

"Four fifty is for if you throw the clergy in with the nobles as one third. Some counts have multiple counties, so you have fewer than a hundred and fifty counts even though you have that many counties. I suppose that still leaves you with a pretty limited number of cleric seats. Fine, six hundred."

"I'm not sure that opening the cleric seats up to non-chelish people will produce worse results, but it doesn't seem especially like any kind of self-government. Thinking on it, I say that we limit it to Chelish clerics, allow more than we can fill with fully qualified people, and accept that most of them won't be up on their theology. Having been vetted by a god and selected for emergency stopgap cleric work may not make them qualified to speak about what their churches would be best served by, but it also isn't nothing, as filters for reasonableness go. Honestly, it's probably a much better filter than whatever handle we have on the nobles we selected."

"I don't object. Theology isn't much of a qualification for what we're trying to do here."

"I keep thinking about the sortition question and feeling like a group of archmages has got to be able to design a better mechanism for it than looking at government records and drawing lots. You spent months putting together that shadow mirror for Drezen and we didn't even end up using it in our final plan. Surely you can devise a spell or a magic item or some other contrivance that, say, detects all thinking beings within some area, then randomly selects one and, I don't know, bestows a curse of 'you have an invitation to the constitutional convention inscribed on your hand' that can only be broken by attending the constitutional convention?"

"Well, one, that sounds like a lot of work, and we're all rather more busy than we were two years ago. But two, beings with an intelligence reading above the animal level who live inside Chelish borders are not the same set as citizens of Cheliax. If we do that, we'll draw kobolds in the sewers, fey in the Barrowood, devils in the Whisperwood, mountain orcs in Menador, blink dogs in the hills, human toddlers, and some large number of slaves. We'd have to manually limit the draw to people who can reasonably be invited and who are meaningfully governed by Cheliax, and there's no way to tell a spell that; we'd have to filter after."

"I'd been assuming the set of candidates for sortition would include slaves. But my real concern here is that the average Chelish citizen would probably respond to that curse by hiding or fleeing the country." 

"Does the government even keep records about slaves? Taxpayers, sure. Citizens, maybe. But are slaves required to be registered? If they are, do we think slaveholders reliably complied with that?"

"Naima, you picked your apprentices by detecting those above some intellect threshold and it worked out fine. Were you applying any other filters when you did that? How did you make sure you didn't end up with any blink dog apprentices?"

"Well, the first time I specifically looked for places that were housing groups of orphans, then detected intelligence on the ones I found. The second time, I detected intelligence on the set of people who responded to an advertisement in the paper. But the point of sortition, as I understand it, is to avoid selecting based on interest."

"So are we going to pressgang people who don't want to come into attending? If the average Chelish citizen flees the country when invited, then that's still selecting based on interest. Ultimately people will come or they won't, and we'll probably have to invite a lot more than will actually show up in order to get the numbers you're looking for. If some invites land on toddlers or kobolds, doesn't that have about the same practical effect as some of them landing on people who are too terrified to appear when summoned?"

"Honestly, I assumed we were press-ganging people."

"Naturally. We could experiment with drawing until we get someone willing in a few counties, but my concern is that gets us the already locally powerful – exactly who we don't want." 

"...fair enough. In that case what if we pressgang someone whose registered owner doesn't want them to go, or will only let them go if they represent specific opinions, or will punish them afterwards for saying the wrong things? Even if we want slaves to attend, I don't see how they could possibly be expected to represent their own interests."

"That's not just slaves, that's everyone. We'll have to provide for their protection later in any case, and slaves I suppose we can manumit as necessary." 

"It's only tenable if you free anyone you draw, and even then their families remain enslaved. I suppose you could free them, too. Ione is right that we don't have a good mechanism for drawing them, but we could probably come up with something. It won't include all slaves, I'm sure."

"Élie's right though. It won't just be slaves, though that's the most obvious case. Anyone who contradicts the desires of the local powers, nobility or otherwise, is going to face repercussions. You're going to need to find a way to deal with that. Manumitting slaves won't solve the deeper problem. And I don't know if the state capacity exists to protect those who will need it."

"Between the delegates-by-lots, the president, the newly-empowered clergy who have pressing local concerns, and the nobility confused about what a constitution is or why Cheliax is getting one, I'm starting to wonder if we'll have even a dozen people who want to be there."

"I, for one, would be delighted if we could replace the president." 

"You'll be united with them in suffering. ...we could make interference with delegates a capital offense, but I can't actually think of a way to effectively prevent reprisals for anything they say that doesn't effectively make them immune to all law enforcement for the rest of their lives. It's a difficult problem."

"If you don't want to do it, I will. Though I'm certain you'll be less satisfied with the result," he says to the Galtian with well-practiced deadpan.

"Is there some kind of royal protection they can be placed under? Maybe give one of the Hellknight orders responsibility for investigating interference with the convention, including reprisals against delegates. If you can trust them, that is."

"I appreciate the offer – and it might actually help if you want to stand next to me and look grimly disapproving of all this radical populist nonsense." 

"I suppose I can do that. Though I rarely ever look grim."

"I'm glad we have your support. For the delegates... Keeping track of what happens to two hundred randomized, unrelated people is just a very difficult task. Security during the convention will be enough of a headache, but keeping it going indefinitely?" She sighs deeply. "Perhaps we can offer them the choice to leave Cheliax, or offer them new land, or give them a new face, but these all in themselves constitute ruining someone's life if they were previously doing all right for themselves."

"Is there a way we could maintain their anonymity during the convention, and then they could return to their regular lives or not as they prefer afterwards?"

"Nothing that's both foolproof and cheap. The difficulty I foresee is protecting them from scrying attempts by people who met them during the convention, but maybe that at least limits the scope of the bullying."

"The pool of people who want to harass some delegate and have access to scrying is certainly smaller than the pool of people who will be angry with some delegate about something they said," she agrees. "So where do we source 600 hats of disguise to distribute with our invitations?"

"You would need a Greater for any reliability, and I am not paying to give everyone even the simple version. I'm not immediately sure how to do this affordably, but it's not that."

"It might be the most cost-effective way to do it, though. Even if we could rely on them all to be able to use a wand of alter self, it wouldn't last long enough to hold an entire debate while under its effects, and I'm not coming up with anything else that would do it. I suppose I could keep the debate hall cloaked in deeper darkness and everyone could deliver their speeches in pitch black, but I imagine that would make moderating the discussion unduly difficult for the president." She furrows her brow. "I had assumed the crown would be covering expenses. Catherine, do you know the state of the royal treasury? What sort of budget allocation are we looking at for the entire convention?"

"The crown is effectively relying on me and Elie to bankroll most aspects of the rebuilding process. A million gold - and that's what it would take, to commission that many hats, to say nothing of the delay it would impose - is equivalent to freeing around ten thousand souls from hell, right now, and I'd rather the ten thousand souls."

" - can we just give everyone completely nonmagical masks to wear? Is that actually any more unreliable than illusions?"

"...right, nonmagical disguises exist and are probably sufficient for most purposes. If they have any other identifying features it won't help them, but it's definitely better than nothing."

"It's also not that expensive to announce that my office will be scrying delegates at random for the next few decades and intervening in the case of suspicious injury or death. The bigger question is if we ought to anoymize the elected delegates and nobles – I think not."

"Why not? Are they any less likely to be at risk of reprisal? And wouldn't it give the rest of the delegates better cover if all of them were equally anonymous?"

"The whole point of having sortition delegates is that the sort of people who become nobles or run for office in Cheliax got there because they're good at bending the Asmodean system in their favor – or because we personally appointed them. Either way, they're there voluntarily and understand the risks. If they want power, they can stand to bear scrutiny."

"I see your point, but I still feel like the immediate effect of only requiring masks for those not attending voluntarily is to make the rest of the delegates ignore anything spoken by someone wearing a mask."

"Well, they'll do that anyway, they'll be commoners. Many of the nobles will recognize one another even if they are wearing masks."

"I don't think there's a good solution to that. Even though the nobles won't all know each other because half of them are recently resurrected, they can probably tell from accents and mannerisms even if they're all disguised... In Galt it was an issue and I expect it to be worse here, both because the Galtan nobility were culturally less snobbish about their status and because the assemblymen who weren't nobles weren't commoners. I think the fact that they were selected by lot is going to count against them, in a lot of eyes, and I don't think we're going to be able to change that. Even polymorphing them all wouldn't do it."

"They're still one third of the assembly, though, if we do the numbers Elie's way. There's no way to get the other delegates to take them as seriously, but they'll have enough votes by the numbers that they're at least worth trying to convince of things."

"...and, thinking on it, it's entirely possible that different factions will be equally likely to dismiss the recently resurrected nobles, or the nobles who are left over from last year, or the clerics who don't know their own churches' theology. People won't have the luxury of completely dismissing everyone they don't respect."

"If it's structured such that each faction will need at least some delegates from each other faction on board, that ameliorates things somewhat. Is it just going to be "delegates submit articles and then whichever ones get more ayes than nays go in the constitution", or do you have something more complicated in mind? I've no idea how the one in Galt was structured."

"I'm not sure we ought to do exactly what we did in Galt, all things considered, but it wasn't like that. We had a smaller committee with representatives from each estate to write the thing – and then, if I remember correctly, there was something of general revolt, and then another committee – but they did manage to draw up a draft. Of course, we knew what the major debates were going to be from the beginning; the powers of the monarchy and who should have the franchise and so on."

"I hardly think we need to declare a particular structure up front, especially as most of us won't be participating. In Galt the convention chose to create a smaller draft committee. If our convention wants a different structure - proposing points in full session or having four committees each with their competing drafts or something else entirely - that seems fine to me? I think the only structural questions we have any business opining on are things like - what rules of order is Élie going to be enforcing, since he won't and shouldn't rule by decree."

"That sounds difficult and boring, although I recognize that as we've foisted the responsibility off on Élie we should probably have opinions if it's helpful to him. I suppose you'll at least be tasked with preventing them from interfering with one another. I'm more interested in opinions on transport logistics for delegates, although I don't know whether that needs to be decided in this meeting at all."

"Dear gods, you can't possibly expect me to have an opinion on rules of order. Old Cheliax had parliament. Unless it's egregious, we'll do what they did." 

"All right. In that case we go ahead with attempting a religious survey of limited parts of the Chelish population and assign cleric spots accordingly, we release instructions for how each county is to elect a representative, we send out invitations to the nobles, the hellknight orders, the colleges, and the druids, and I go over the Chelish school records, tax records, and records of enslaved persons to generate two hundred sortition candidates. I propose that Ione and I - and Elie, I suppose - personally collect the sortition delegates and teleport them to Westcrown, in order to prevent half of them from fleeing or being murdered on the roads. We can give both the delegates and the families fifty gold for the inconvenience, and assign someone to assist them with finding lodging in Westcrown."

"...and that Elie set a date for the convention, keeping in mind that it is already Neth and that the bulk of our sortition candidates will be concerned about missing the planting season if we draw this out into spring."

"I think we should do as much as we reasonably can to encourage their goodwill, which could mean trying to finish the elections in time to hold the convention before the planting, or more likely delaying the actual convention until summer." 

"Let's do summer, if no one minds. This is a horrible amount of record keeping to have assigned ourselves, and none of these people have ever run an election before. First of Sarenith?"

"I think we can manage that."