"Uh, excuse me, is this an appropriate place to inquire about the Church of Abadar's expectations related to the convention?" asks a young man wearing a holy symbol that marks him as a cleric of Abadar.

"Yes, come in. I am Fiducia Agramunt."

In he comes.

"Baron Llúcian Tomàs Toset de Tona, though I'm at the convention in my capacity as a Cleric of Abadar,"

"Are you recently returned to the living, or recently added to the ranks of His clerics?"

"Recently returned to the living, though I didn't have much formal training on Abadar prior to that so it might be wise to treat me as both,"

"Have you read The Order of Numbers?"

"Yes, though I havn't studied it in depth."

"And The Manual of City-Building?"

"The first section - it was enjoyable but didn't seem very relevant to my circumstances when I was alive."

"In what year did you die?"

"4629," In the middle of the Chelish civil war. 

"I can imagine that it would seem less relevant in wartime. Nevertheless you should read it now. The church's copy is in the display case there." Jaume has an entire ring of keys on his necklace, the holy symbol one and also some others; he picks one such key out from its neighbors and unlocks the case.

"Right now?"

"Do you have more pressing business?"

"I need to find a place to stay the night at some point but aside from that I suppose not?"

"Any church of Abadar will rent a verifiable cleric of His a room. I am a delegate to the convention and found this one best suited to my budget and convenience but of course you may investigate the others."

Well that's convenient then. He'll see about renting a room at this church and assuming it's reasonably priced he'll make arrangements and return to read the book afterwards.

It is as fair as a churchful of Abadarans can make it. When he comes back Jaume will re-unlock the case to let him at the book.

Maybe this time it will seem to be something other than a very well targeted distraction from the real world. 

The Manual of City-Building is about:

- establishing trust by legibilizing trustworthiness, and preventing the degradation of that trust by preventing the degradation of the trustworthiness
- various levels of organization via which one could perceive a society, with the city being one favorite but the family/household, the guild or interest group, the neighborhood, and the socioeconomic class also being useful lenses
- the essential inputs and outputs of a town necessary to run the processes that constitute it
- how those processes enable more of everyone's desiderata to be accomplished than living in smaller groups

... Yeah, that is definitely the god Llúcian is proud to be the cleric of.

"This seems helpful, especially in our present circumstances. Though I'm surprised it didn't spend more time on money given the church's reputation."

"Money is a generic unit of exchange. It is indispensible at a large scale among parties without context on one another's needs and with poorly correlated interests. But it is not essential in smaller units like a family or for all possible exchanges. This church offers some classes for free, serving as advertising, and that is not heretical. A family will typically dispense with the overhead of paying children for chores or charging them for new shoes, and this too is licit."

"It's the focus on money over trust and legibility that confuses me. Money seems useful as a tool and fascinating as a subject but ... I don't understand the theological importance of it to Abadar?"

"It is a store of value. The important thing is the value, but it is holy to be able to divide that value into coins, to hold them and to spend them for other values and end with more than you started with as signified by the weight of the silver."

"Is there... a reason for its religious significance beyond it's usefulness for measurement and the ability to acquire more of it?"

"Is there a reason your key is religiously significant beyond that you can use it to cast spells granted to you by Abadar?"

"I can use it as a legible signifier of my office as a cleric, I suppose?"

"Perhaps you simply lack the numinous feeling. It is of little matter if its absence is not disturbing to you," says Jaume, though he sounds faintly disappointed.

"I do find it rather fascinating, just not intuitively sacred."

"Possibly further exposure to the workings of the church will be salutary."

"Perhaps."

"Are there expectations that the church has of me for how I represent them at the convention?"

"The nature of the convention is such that it is not clear if we are permitted to take specific instructions from foreign interests. They have requested Chelish clerics and Chelish clerics only, though the temple itself is staffed with imports to help us establish ourselves; even Inquisitor Shawil is attending in his capacity as Conde d'Egorian; and for we Chelish clerics to serve as mouthpieces would be in tension with the philosophy establishing the convention to begin with. I take this to mean that we should educate ourselves on our theology and doctrine in a general sense but take no particular convention issues to our Osirian and Taldane and other colleagues."

"To what philosophy are you referring to exactly?"

"The archmage Cottonet styling himself President of the convention has convened it in order to receive the considered opinions of the Chelish populace that we may be governed in accordance with some weighting of our several needs."

"Ah, it really is a stroke of fortune that the adventurers who overthrew the Thrunes were so reasonable as to convene such a convention."

"I am unsure that it is reason driving them."