"I would tend to recommend against it, but for other reasons. The situation of the Chelish dollar has left coinage, per se, rarer and dearer than it should be. I do not know how far the pockets of the party which liberated Cheliax extend, but they are already sorely pressed with other matters, and the coffers of the state itself are suffering from no longer receiving the backing of Hell. While it is not necessarily blasphemous unto Abadar to distribute gifts, the fragile state of the monetary system and business landscape makes it more urgent than usual to preferentially grant money in exchange for activities which build up wealth, so as to encourage those activities over others. A compensated slave would spend, and that is good for the economy compared to its absence, but a compensated owner may be able to use the funds to keep operational an enterprise which brings returns year after year."

“Not think blasphemous against Abadar relevant anyway?”

"What might anger Abadar is relevant. Kingdoms which anger their gods rarely fare well."

"Pretty sure Abadar not god of Cheliax? Itarii no have gods mostly, lots gods exist, probably do something would be blasphemous to someone, are fine?"

That's...debatable. He's not going to debate it. "Maybe so, but large kingdoms which act so as to anger a god at scale may provoke more of a response than small tribes... We are being lured away from the path. Let us return to the purposes for which this committee was gathered."

"The last time I'm aware of something similar happened, Abadar Himself made no appearance, but the Abadarans left en masse, leaving an entire country without banking service. I have no doubt your tribes manage without this amenity. Cheliax cannot." Which really calls into question why she's here as a convention delegate instead of some sort of ambassador to an already stabilized government, but that wasn't down to him.

She shrugs. 

"If Abadar think bad not reward people for keeping other people captive, better off without." 

Does the chair desire that - no, he'll just wait for the chair to comment, this time. Presumably the chair has ever thought about money before in his entire life.

"Liushna, I don't know how many people live in the strix tribes, but some twenty million people live in Cheliax. Managing an economy at this scale is difficult—if there is a organization with such capabilities other than the Church of Abadar, I am unaware of it. I do not think Cheliax can afford a mass exodus of Abadarans."

"...If function God is necessary, why only have one Evil not one Good?"

"Abadar is Lawful Neutral."

"If Abadar were Evil his priests would not be here."

"If not evil, why want reward slavers???" Liushna is SO CONFUSED. Like, by human "civilization" in general, but especially right now. 

"Does the chair consider this point of theology germane."

Ramirez suspects this point is too nuanced for the strix and will not argue it.

"What Abadar wants, in this instance, is not to 'reward slavers'. My understanding is that he wishes for the economy to run smoothly, and the Fiducia believes the best way to achieve this is to compensate the slaveowners for their losses. I do not think further discussion of Abadaran theology is particularly relevant."

His standards for the monsters were already low but he'd kind of assumed they knew that stealing was wrong, at least enough to be able to pretend.

"I think that when a rich person claims that every book and all the gods say we should give him more money or everyone will starve, we should ignore him. If it isn't acceptable to ask about everyone's backgrounds, it's not acceptable to ask if he's a cleric of Abadar or if I'm not, so we shouldn't care if he is or about what big words he uses; if he is, I want to ask him a lot of questions about how he survived before the war or if he was rich then or how many slaves he owns, because those matter to the question of if he's giving everyone good advice, or looking after his friends."

"Abadarans do not use self-interest as a compass when advising on the economy at large."

Does literally anyone who grew up in Cheliax believe this.

"I think he speaks the truth. I've been told the same by a priest of Iomedae."

Permira is from Cheliax and she'll believe Iomedae if she ever learns how to cast Commune herself and ask her, she certainly won't believe it filtered through her clerics and a baron.

"We are skirting around the actual issue here: who should be compensated when the slaves are freed, and by how much? The Fiducia has given his perspective—we must pay the slaveowners an amount that will keep their businesses running. I have suggested we pay former slaves, in hopes that it will help economic stability without enriching slaveowners. The committee is obviously divided on this issue, but we must decide on something."

"Compensating the slaveowners will not enrich them. If on the whole a slaveowner expected to be richer by selling his slaves for what the market will bear - a figure I cannot imagine this committee agreeing to exceed - then he would have done it already. It will somewhat ameliorate the damage done by the appropriation."

"Everyone who isn't betting their fortune on slavery already got compensated by selling the slaves. Everyone who is betting their fortune should lose it, because everything they have is invested in mortal pain continuing. We should compensate people who freed their slaves willingly, so all the evil greedy people will say 'We should've done that!' I think we should pay former slaves with the lands of their masters; if everything goes badly they can grow the food they need themselves and harvest it themselves, but it won't. You work harder for yourself than you do for a man with a whip."