Blai is tracked to be a cleric when he is in school. He is very good at knowing what he doesn't know: Creation is vast and full of things that both directly and indirectly thwart mortal understanding, because mortals are very bad at understanding things. The cure for this ailment is hierarchy. Even a god cannot (anymore) give individual marching orders to every bewildered ant in their purview. But they can order their servants and those orders can include how to further order their subordinates. Sometimes it is not clear how any plans are advanced by the movement of a divinity's mortal pawns, as scaffolding is placed and then does not feature in the final structure, as wax is molded and then burned to make way for silver. It would be a poor bit of scaffolding which, seeing that those like it were never part of the cathedral, deserted under the feet of the craftsmen, who likewise are not ingredients of the edifice. It would be a foolish craftsman who tried to embed himself in the mortar, and an unworthy one who abandoned his work to pursue leisure.

Blai is actually very insecure about being a cleric. He would prefer never to be promoted. At low levels of the hierarchy he can just do as he is told. At higher ones he would be operating in complicated enough situations to need to interpret orders. To make judgment calls! He pays extremely close attention in cleric training and it is not mostly about how to do that. But his anxieties are not important. No one asks the pliers in the glassworker's hand, as he creates the window in the wall of the temple, 'do you feel confident of this strike'.

He is stationed in the Worldwound. It's a relief, not that this matters. There's a lot of prior art on how to cleric a Worldwound fort. There are policy handbooks and checklists and best practices. He follows them all, submits for his superior's consideration a proposed flowchart for how to fall back to more minimal functionality during resource shortfalls, casts many orisons and a few higher circle spells, and plays chess, when "hurry up and wait" hours mount. Often just against himself when no one else is interested, though none of the policy handbooks say he's supposed to torture people for beating him at chess (or for losing, for that matter) so he's not sure why it's so disfavored as a pastime. Maybe someone else has an extrapolitical hobby of torturing soldiers for beating them at chess and word gets garbled.

He gets a book on chess variants, at one point, offered by and purchased from an adventurer who stops by their fort and is willing to play chess with him, possibly because Blai would not be authorized to torture him even if it came up. It has versions for more players, different arrangements of pieces, adjustments of the rules of engagement. He has pretty broad discretion in how to punish minor infractions in his fort, which is dizzying until he realizes he can sentence people to play weird chess with him, and then he's very satisfied with the arrangement. If enough people are late or drunk or thinking questionable thoughts or plausibly exhibiting cowardice on the battlefield, he can get three of them together all at once and play the one where there are teams and you get to use your teammate's captured pieces on your own side. It is a testament to his previous diligence that this does not increase the average weekly number of infractions recorded at the fort.

Then somebody conquers Cheliax.

It's the shortest war Blai's ever heard of. Four days. The Worldwound doesn't change in response to geopolitics, though, and his orders it remain the same.

Then some months later his spells get pulled.

It's not just him, or he'd be really worried he'd done something wrong. It seems to be happening to loads of Asmodean clerics. Their lord is taking down the scaffolding. Something has been completed - or possibly abandoned, it's not for them to know. Nobody actually recalls him, even when he writes for orders, so ad-hocs some modifications to his routine to account for not having spells, and it happens that his men don't decide to tear him apart given the opportunity, so that's convenient. One of them even volunteers to learn chess. At some point the Worldwound closes, though that makes surprisingly little difference to daily operations, as the demons weren't ontologically dependent on the portal and will keep coming for a while.

And then Someone picks him up.

Like a chess piece lost at one board and emplaced on another facing the opposite direction, he has been fielded by his lord's enemy's ally - or something - mortals are not given to understand such things, but Iomedae is giving him spells now. Once he has satisfied himself that it's definitely Her, and his confused and grouchy men at the fort continue not to tear him to pieces, he writes to Lastwall, since that's where the Iomedaeans live.

To whom it may concern:

I have been in service at Chelish Worldwound border fort #11 for eight years in my capacity as a Priest of Asmodeus. Due to recent Events I found myself disempowered and then Re-empowered by Iomedae. Knowing not what Divine Arrangements have taken place to cause such a Result I nonetheless mean to submit myself humbly to my new God and carry out Her Instructions. I am unfamiliar with the chain of Command by which I am now to receive such, being that my customary Superiors are in an organizational Shambles on all fronts and most likely have not all been transferred to Iomedae's keeping in the same action. As of this writing I retain the obedience of fort #11's complement of Personnel but am unclear on prospect of Resupply, further Orders, projected Demon Incursion rate given the Closure of the Wound, possible Desertions, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Please instruct me as to who may be my superior in religious matters as of this time and what it is they would have of me most particularly vis a vis the Conquest of my Nation.

Iomedae's,
Blai Artigas

p.s. is it "Select" now? I have met Abadarans of different titles and do not know how many Iomedaeans have.

p.p.s. e4

He has the wizard copy it so he has one for his records and sends the original off.

Blai is tracked to be a cleric when he is in school. He is very good at knowing what he doesn't know: Creation is vast and full of things that both directly and indirectly thwart mortal understanding, because mortals are very bad at understanding things. The cure for this ailment is hierarchy. Even a god cannot (anymore) give individual marching orders to every bewildered ant in their purview. But they can order their servants and those orders can include how to further order their subordinates. Sometimes it is not clear how any plans are advanced by the movement of a divinity's mortal pawns, as scaffolding is placed and then does not feature in the final structure, as wax is molded and then burned to make way for silver. It would be a poor bit of scaffolding which, seeing that those like it were never part of the cathedral, deserted under the feet of the craftsmen, who likewise are not ingredients of the edifice. It would be a foolish craftsman who tried to embed himself in the mortar, and an unworthy one who abandoned his work to pursue leisure.

Blai is actually very insecure about being a cleric. He would prefer never to be promoted. At low levels of the hierarchy he can just do as he is told. At higher ones he would be operating in complicated enough situations to need to interpret orders. To make judgment calls! He pays extremely close attention in cleric training and it is not mostly about how to do that. But his anxieties are not important. No one asks the pliers in the glassworker's hand, as he creates the window in the wall of the temple, 'do you feel confident of this strike'.

He is stationed in the Worldwound. It's a relief, not that this matters. There's a lot of prior art on how to cleric a Worldwound fort. There are policy handbooks and checklists and best practices. He follows them all, submits for his superior's consideration a proposed flowchart for how to fall back to more minimal functionality during resource shortfalls, casts many orisons and a few higher circle spells, and plays chess, when "hurry up and wait" hours mount. Often just against himself when no one else is interested, though none of the policy handbooks say he's supposed to torture people for beating him at chess (or for losing, for that matter) so he's not sure why it's so disfavored as a pastime. Maybe someone else has an extrapolitical hobby of torturing soldiers for beating them at chess and word gets garbled.

He gets a book on chess variants, at one point, offered by and purchased from an adventurer who stops by their fort and is willing to play chess with him, possibly because Blai would not be authorized to torture him even if it came up. It has versions for more players, different arrangements of pieces, adjustments of the rules of engagement. He has pretty broad discretion in how to punish minor infractions in his fort, which is dizzying until he realizes he can sentence people to play weird chess with him, and then he's very satisfied with the arrangement. If enough people are late or drunk or thinking questionable thoughts or plausibly exhibiting cowardice on the battlefield, he can get three of them together all at once and play the one where there are teams and you get to use your teammate's captured pieces on your own side. It is a testament to his previous diligence that this does not increase the average weekly number of infractions recorded at the fort.

Then somebody conquers Cheliax.

It's the shortest war Blai's ever heard of. Four days. The Worldwound doesn't change in response to geopolitics, though, and his orders it remain the same.

Then some months later his spells get pulled.

It's not just him, or he'd be really worried he'd done something wrong. It seems to be happening to loads of Asmodean clerics. Their lord is taking down the scaffolding. Something has been completed - or possibly abandoned, it's not for them to know. Nobody actually recalls him, even when he writes for orders, so ad-hocs some modifications to his routine to account for not having spells, and it happens that his men don't decide to tear him apart given the opportunity, so that's convenient. One of them even volunteers to learn chess. At some point the Worldwound closes, though that makes surprisingly little difference to daily operations, as the demons weren't ontologically dependent on the portal and will keep coming for a while.

And then Someone picks him up.

Like a chess piece lost at one board and emplaced on another facing the opposite direction, he has been fielded by his lord's enemy's ally - or something - mortals are not given to understand such things, but Iomedae is giving him spells now. Once he has satisfied himself that it's definitely Her, and his confused and grouchy men at the fort continue not to tear him to pieces, he writes to Lastwall, since that's where the Iomedaeans live.

To whom it may concern:

I have been in service at Chelish Worldwound border fort #11 for eight years in my capacity as a Priest of Asmodeus. Due to recent Events I found myself disempowered and then Re-empowered by Iomedae. Knowing not what Divine Arrangements have taken place to cause such a Result I nonetheless mean to submit myself humbly to my new God and carry out Her Instructions. I am unfamiliar with the chain of Command by which I am now to receive such, being that my customary Superiors are in an organizational Shambles on all fronts and most likely have not all been transferred to Iomedae's keeping in the same action. As of this writing I retain the obedience of fort #11's complement of Personnel but am unclear on prospect of Resupply, further Orders, projected Demon Incursion rate given the Closure of the Wound, possible Desertions, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Please instruct me as to who may be my superior in religious matters as of this time and what it is they would have of me most particularly vis a vis the Conquest of my Nation.

Iomedae's,
Blai Artigas

p.s. is it "Select" now? I have met Abadarans of different titles and do not know how many Iomedaeans have.

p.p.s. e4

He has the wizard copy it so he has one for his records and sends the original off.

Blai is tracked to be a cleric when he is in school. He is very good at knowing what he doesn't know: Creation is vast and full of things that both directly and indirectly thwart mortal understanding, because mortals are very bad at understanding things. The cure for this ailment is hierarchy. Even a god cannot (anymore) give individual marching orders to every bewildered ant in their purview. But they can order their servants and those orders can include how to further order their subordinates. Sometimes it is not clear how any plans are advanced by the movement of a divinity's mortal pawns, as scaffolding is placed and then does not feature in the final structure, as wax is molded and then burned to make way for silver. It would be a poor bit of scaffolding which, seeing that those like it were never part of the cathedral, deserted under the feet of the craftsmen, who likewise are not ingredients of the edifice. It would be a foolish craftsman who tried to embed himself in the mortar, and an unworthy one who abandoned his work to pursue leisure.

Blai is actually very insecure about being a cleric. He would prefer never to be promoted. At low levels of the hierarchy he can just do as he is told. At higher ones he would be operating in complicated enough situations to need to interpret orders. To make judgment calls! He pays extremely close attention in cleric training and it is not mostly about how to do that. But his anxieties are not important. No one asks the pliers in the glassworker's hand, as he creates the window in the wall of the temple, 'do you feel confident of this strike'.

He is stationed in the Worldwound. It's a relief, not that this matters. There's a lot of prior art on how to cleric a Worldwound fort. There are policy handbooks and checklists and best practices. He follows them all, submits for his superior's consideration a proposed flowchart for how to fall back to more minimal functionality during resource shortfalls, casts many orisons and a few higher circle spells, and plays chess, when "hurry up and wait" hours mount. Often just against himself when no one else is interested, though none of the policy handbooks say he's supposed to torture people for beating him at chess (or for losing, for that matter) so he's not sure why it's so disfavored as a pastime. Maybe someone else has an extrapolitical hobby of torturing soldiers for beating them at chess and word gets garbled.

He gets a book on chess variants, at one point, offered by and purchased from an adventurer who stops by their fort and is willing to play chess with him, possibly because Blai would not be authorized to torture him even if it came up. It has versions for more players, different arrangements of pieces, adjustments of the rules of engagement. He has pretty broad discretion in how to punish minor infractions in his fort, which is dizzying until he realizes he can sentence people to play weird chess with him, and then he's very satisfied with the arrangement. If enough people are late or drunk or thinking questionable thoughts or plausibly exhibiting cowardice on the battlefield, he can get three of them together all at once and play the one where there are teams and you get to use your teammate's captured pieces on your own side. It is a testament to his previous diligence that this does not increase the average weekly number of infractions recorded at the fort.

Then somebody conquers Cheliax.

It's the shortest war Blai's ever heard of. Four days. The Worldwound doesn't change in response to geopolitics, though, and his orders remain the same.

Then some months later his spells get pulled.

It's not just him, or he'd be really worried he'd done something wrong. It seems to be happening to loads of Asmodean clerics. Their lord is taking down the scaffolding. Something has been completed - or possibly abandoned, it's not for them to know. Nobody actually recalls him, even when he writes for orders, so ad-hocs some modifications to his routine to account for not having spells, and it happens that his men don't decide to tear him apart given the opportunity, so that's convenient. One of them even volunteers to learn chess. At some point the Worldwound closes, though that makes surprisingly little difference to daily operations, as the demons weren't ontologically dependent on the portal and will keep coming for a while.

And then Someone picks him up.

Like a chess piece lost at one board and emplaced on another facing the opposite direction, he has been fielded by his lord's enemy's ally - or something - mortals are not given to understand such things, but Iomedae is giving him spells now. Once he has satisfied himself that it's definitely Her, and his confused and grouchy men at the fort continue not to tear him to pieces, he writes to Lastwall, since that's where the Iomedaeans live.

To whom it may concern:

I have been in service at Chelish Worldwound border fort #11 for eight years in my capacity as a Priest of Asmodeus. Due to recent Events I found myself disempowered and then Re-empowered by Iomedae. Knowing not what Divine Arrangements have taken place to cause such a Result I nonetheless mean to submit myself humbly to my new God and carry out Her Instructions. I am unfamiliar with the chain of Command by which I am now to receive such, being that my customary Superiors are in an organizational Shambles on all fronts and most likely have not all been transferred to Iomedae's keeping in the same action. As of this writing I retain the obedience of fort #11's complement of Personnel but am unclear on prospect of Resupply, further Orders, projected Demon Incursion rate given the Closure of the Wound, possible Desertions, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Please instruct me as to who may be my superior in religious matters as of this time and what it is they would have of me most particularly vis a vis the Conquest of my Nation.

Iomedae's,
Blai Artigas

p.s. is it "Select" now? I have met Abadarans of different titles and do not know how many Iomedaeans have.

p.p.s. e4

He has the wizard copy it so he has one for his records and sends the original off.