Who... is the Good god for things like being good at writing, actually?

Is there a Good Mephistopheles drafting the grand charters of Heaven?

She doesn't have an angle on a question that would shed light on this just yet, though.

"Miss Solandra, I do want to talk about Erastil and Iomedae, when it's a good time for it. But I can wait my turn."

Stiff smile.

"Sorry, I guess I've monopolized the conversation.  After the... intensity this morning I may have overshot making sure i was heard.  I would like a chance to explain Irori, but I would also like to hear about other Gods as well, especially Lawful Gods like Erastil and Iomedae."

Right, she's spent so much focus politicking she's missing an amazing opportunity to learn!  A single morning and the Asmodean taint of politics has already started to warp her.  She could be learning from one taught by a lawful afterlife!  Her smile turns genuine at the thought.

"Thea, if you wanted to write something up I'd love to have a look at it, I even do readings of particularly good pamphlets on the steps of the church of Shelyn every evening and you'd be welcome to join me if you need a platform. Please go ahead, Eumenes!"

Enric looks on with visible awe. He’s actually going to hear about heaven and the gods from someone who has been there and, presumably, met them.

Lluïsa knew intellectually that planes besides Hell also had outsiders, but never gave it any thought.

Now she's intensely curious, and actually a bit visibly rapt.

A devil of Heaven, is how she's thinking of him. Which is frightening as well as fascinating.

"Oh, thank you! I've been thinking about the Queen's decision to listen to the church of Iomedae about everything. Iomedae is a great goddess to defend people from hell. The very best. But she's also very, very busy, and almost all of her work is fighting. Since we're not fighting anymore, I don't think that we should tell everyone to listen to her. Most people in Cheliax are very, very tired and scared, and most of them didn't grow up very well. You shouldn't fight evil if you feel like that. You've got to be all right first. But Heaven has a place for people who have got to spend more time being all right, too. It's Erastil and Jaidi's place, the Summerlands. I think it would be very good to try to be like the Summerlands. Erastil isn't so busy all the time, and he can listen to more people, and show them how to be mamas and papas again. But if everyone tries to be like heaven's armies, I think that they will hurt themselves, and Iomedae won't have time to explain to everyone. So I would like our main church to be Erastil's, and not Iomedae's. At least until people are all right again."

"That does make sense. I think Erastil was able to send more clerics than any other cleric except maybe Pharasma, to this convention, so we might be well on our way already. Is there something about it you think belongs in the Constitution?"

"I agree with the importance of Erastil, but I don't think we should really be establishing a single church at all."

Tetula’s got a good point.  But Thea was in fact looking forward to information about Heaven’s (nearly) perfect training!  Well, not that they were actually getting that instead of relatively standard lines about Erastil and Iomedae… maybe he was starting with the basics?  Either way she’ll keep silent for now and see how everyone else reacts.

Lluïsa considers this quite seriously.

Erastil is the god of countryside farmers, whose priests do weddings. Lluïsa is a city dweller with wizardry; this is a god distant from her concerns.

On the other hand, Erastil was still somehow the god of countryside farmers whose priests did weddings during the time when this was illegal heresy. If nothing else, he's a formidable god.

"The Establishment of that late unlamented Hellish Church," she says slowly, "was assuredly a Diabolical work, yet even under its odious Yoke, the faith of Erastil was never snuffed entire, but sprouted irrepressibly among the People. Though I dwell in this City, and my prayers turn to the Inheritor," true as of this morning, "it seems to me that though Iomedae liberates, Erastil preserves."

Maybe someone who knows Good theology can interpret this musing as a useful theological point. On to the more comfortable ground of law! She's hit the books hard in the run-up to the convention, and consults her notes briefly.

"In making an Establishment, several Factors weigh; the enumeration of the Sanctioned Churches, and the privileges guaranteed thereunto, in like but reverse manner the enumeration of the Proscribed Churches, and the rights denied thereunto, and lastly those rights and privileges belonging to those Churches which are neither; in addition to which it may behoove to fix a single Church in primacy for Ceremonial and Juridical usage. That loathsome Hellish Establishment now past, amounting to the Tyranny of a single Vile Faith, proscribing all not subordinated to it, or in the case of Pharasma superior to it, need be no Model for a Virtuous Establishment; in older law, the church of holy Aroden was fixed in primacy and held certain special privileges; an Established Church in the truest sense, but no Tyrant Faith that, e.g., an itinerant of Desna would fear."

"And how did the law at the time talk about the church of Aroden?"

"In ceremonial usage, His name was often invoked as guarantor, such formulas as 'in the name of holy Aroden' found prefatory to most Enactments; moreover, I have seen that that Church's privilege of regulating its own affairs is invariably respected, though the old Empire not being a Constitutional one, the language appeals to immemorial custom, a typical formula being something like 'respecting all those customary Privileges of the Church of holy Aroden', that in making a Constitutional Empire we need enumerate specifically, immemorial custom being sadly interrupted in any case."

"Oh, yes, there should be many churches, Miss Tetula. But when the Queen asks a church for help, we should ask Erastil first. Desna's clerics must be free to roam. Cayden's must be free to fight evil where they find it. Erastil's can be rooted, and we may ask them many things without being a bother. But it is a great shame if none of them can read, Mister Porras. I could teach them, if no other can be found. Reading is quite useful when remembering things. I used it often in the army."

"Miss Cornellà, I did not understand all that you said." No lantern archon is ashamed to admit not understanding; it is among the first and most important lessons, that one must always ask if one does not understand one's orders. It will happen very often. "Can you explain it more simply?"

Yes! Enric still isn’t sure how building a kingdom of Erastil would work but, now that the child of heaven has confirmed it’s the goal, he’s going to work even harder to figure it out. 

Even the strange lawyer seems to understand, and she sounds like she’s read so many books you’d expect her to be completely asmodean. She gets it, that Erastil was with us in the time before Aroden when the world was forest and there were no kings. That no matter who rules, he’ll still be with us. 

He stays quiet for now, putting together what it is he wants to say and listening to the explanations on what a church being the primary church means, when it isn’t the church of Asmodeus.

Do angels’ skill at complicated mortal language atrophy compared to their mortal life?  That seems… a step away from perfection!  Or maybe he’s just cleverly outwitting the lawyer by forcing her to use simpler words?  Thea hopes it is the second thing!

Or wait, he’s a child in resurrected form, so he was a child when he died, so maybe his skill at language grew slowly but perfectly and he is doing fine relative to his age?  Well by child standards he is doing great!  But it seems disappointing to think petitioners’ skills grow so slowly.

Lluïsa nods to the small child who isn't, taking a moment to compose herself and some sentences.

"First, that there is a Primary Church, used in Ceremony and having great Privileges; second, that there are Approved Churches, having Privileges; third, that even those Churches not Approved have certain rights and privileges; except that fourth, there are Proscribed Churches, to which even those rights are denied."

"For example, if the Primary Church is holy Aroden's, then it is His name used in legal formulas, and his Church with the primary right, for example, to construct its Buildings on choice Land and to Preach; if that of Sarenrae is Approved it also has that right, after that of holy Aroden; if that of Abadar is neither it may still Build and Preach but at its own Expense; and if that of Hell's Prince is Proscribed, then it is forbidden even to Preach its tenets on Land otherwise lawfully acquired."

"I'm not sure I like this stuff about the primary right to build buildings on the best land and to preach."

"Well, Erastil's not going to want city land, is He? This would be the countryside churches, which are all emptied out right now because the Asmodeans are gone. Maybe we could word it to be more equitable between churches within big cities."

“I’ve been trying to figure out how Erastil being the main god of the kingdom would work. He can try to get us living good lives again, not just fight evil. But there’s something I’m having trouble with. I don’t know if Erastil is the kind of god you can do that with. How do I say this…”

”Asmodeus could take Aroden’s spot because he was sort of the same shape. They’re both gods of cities and castles, you can put them into books of law… Asmodeus is evil but he fits in a country almost the same way Aroden did.”

”Erastil isn’t the same type. He doesn’t live in big cathedrals where they crown new queens, he lives in the field and the forest and at your dinner table. We can put Iomedae in the Aroden spot, she fits. But if we want Erastil to be the primary god we’ll need to change what the country is shaped like so he fits.”

Enric isn’t sure he’s making sense. Have explanation might depend on something he can’t say out loud— that it seems like Aroden doesn’t want to come back and rule Cheliax like he used to, he wants to stay in hiding and have his people make something different. 

Thea nods at Enric's words.  Any excuse not to let other churches (like Irori's) get cut out is good!

"I think lots of Gods have lots of roles to play in supporting the land.  I think this committee should make it a goal to talk to clerics of all the invited Gods so we know what each of their roles are."

"All right, let's see, who are we missing... I saw a Gozreh holy symbol and we don't have one of those... I saw Calistrians..."

She prepared for this part!  She knows all Gods with allocated seats!

”In order of number of allocated delegate seats gods with invited cleric are:” she takes a breath and then goes through a clearly rehearsed list

”Pharasma, Erastil, Gozreh, Iomedae, Abadar, Nethys, Desna, Calistria, Gorum, Shelyn, Irori, Cayden, Sarenrae, Chaldira, Milani, Torag"

She smiles to herself at reciting the list from memory.

"I don't know all of the Gods with allocated seats had clerics show up, or what other clerics might have won election or be nobles or even be sortitioned.  And of course minor Empyreal Lords and such should be approved even if they don't have clerics most of the time."

She'll elide revisiting the Erecura question as long as she can, maybe indefinitely.  Sorry, Theopho, she'll try to keep him from being outright proscribed if she can spare the focus.

"Mister Porras, Cheliax is not a land of cities, as Aroden's home in Axis was. I had never seen a Chelish city before I came here. We are very much like the Summerlands, which has cities, but only very few. If the rules of this country are not rules for a land of farms, then they are not good rules. But I do not mean that any good church should do less, apart from Iomedae's. We ask her to do too much work."

"Delegate Porras, would you say that a Primary Church for Ceremony and Law might be distinct from a Primary Church held as first in the Privilege of Preaching; that a Patron God for Enactments and Formulas be that most concerned with Enactments and Formulas, rather than that God held first in the hearts of the People?" she asks.

Exciting, novel legal theories, this is what a Constitutional Convention is for!