"- oh! Sure, I'm a cleric of Shelyn, does She see much attention in the, uh, forest?"

"Some! Nature is full of beauty and - I don't think I actually know anyone who's, like, opposed to beauty on principle. Well, I can think of some people," like those hags probably, "but no-one I personally know. I think Shelyn is - very easy to like, even out of the Good gods, and to worship sometimes even if you don't dedicate your life to Her."

"Does She have many worshippers in Cheliax? I don't - really understand how Cheliax is, or used to be under Asmodeus. I know worshipping Good gods was forbidden, but did people actually - avoid being beautiful or admiring beauty or something?"

"...that's not exactly why I wanted to talk to you so please don't spend a lot of time explaining that to me if you don't want to. What I really want to understand is - out of all the Chelish people I've talked to, noone seems to actually understand Good. I don't mean be Good, I mean just - know what it is. What it's for, what it lets you do that the other alignments don't. Even the cleric of Erastil I spoke to didn't, but he also said he might be Lawful Neutral, so - I guess I just want to understand if anyone here thinks Good means remotely the same thing I was taught it does? Are we even speaking the same language? What is Good, to you?"

"Hmmm. So, I think Good isn't just one thing. Wouldn't that be weird, if it were? It'd be very - samey. Sometimes I get a samey vibe from Sarenrae but not from Shelyn at all, Shelyn wants a thousand colors and a thousand songs and a thousand loves... And I also don't think Good is just three things, either, three planes and three alignments. So you might have been taught a perfectly good Good, and just be discovering how big the possible space of Goodness is!"

"Right, that's true, I meant that - there's a core thing that all the different Good gods and people share, which is why we can call them all Good, why it means something to talk about 'all Good gods' and not about, I dunno, 'all the gods with two alignments'. And Neutral Good has it more - clearly, because you're not distracted by the Law or Chaos. There are still as many different Neutral Goods as there are good people!"

"Just like - there isn't a Most Beautiful Person. To be more beautiful doesn't mean to look more exactly like that one person. Everyone is beautiful in their own way. But that doesn't mean there's no beauty that they share. I think the same way, you can have Shelyn and Sarenrae and other Neutral Good gods, and there's something that they all share, the essence of Good. Something without which I don't think you can be Good. Don't you feel that way?"

"Not necessarily. Like... you could say that there is a thing all, uh... objects, share, that makes them objects instead of... ideas or the wind or something. But that would be a very weird way to talk about objects, when almost always the important thing about an object is going to be more specific than that. I think it might actually make more sense to talk about Evil that way. Evil is hurting people. There are a lot of ways to do it and a lot of reasons to do it but if you're not hurting anybody I don't think you're doing evil. Maybe there are Evil philosophers who think differently, I don't know. Good, though - you could say it's about helping people but that sounds reductive to me. The important thing about an expression of Goodness is almost always going to be more specific than that. You can help people by defending them from their enemies or lifting their spirits or teaching them to reject Evil in their own lives or giving them food or - and if you help an Evil person that could be Good or actively anti-Good depending how you go about it, too."

"That does make sense. Most Evil, some people say all the real Evil, is when someone just wants to hurt others, and the way they choose to hurt them is secondary."

"I don't think it's wrong to say that Good is about helping people, either, it's just - incomplete. You can help some people at the expense of other people, like if you have some food and you give it to your family and not to strangers. If you just - move resources from one person to another, it's not Good, and it's not Evil either, it's just - selfish, and it's normal for everyone to be some amount of selfish. Even if you, say, pay for a friend to be healed, and there's a limited amount of healing spells, someone else would have gotten that spell if it wasn't your friend, so if it's a Good it's a small one."

"I think - I was taught this, and I think it's right - that true Good is about making things better for many people while hurting few or none. Helping people but not at others' expense. Sometimes it's very simple, you can make something beautiful that wasn't there before and some people will enjoy it and probably no-one would ever be hurt by it. And sometimes it's hard, like deciding whether to fight a war which would be very bad if you lose."

"And the thing it lets you do that the other alignments don't is that - if we're both Good, and you tell me 'there's a Good idea we could do', you can expect me to cooperate, because I want Good too. Maybe I won't spend a lot of time helping, but I'll spend at least a little and I wouldn't stop you. We don't need to have a deal about it beforehand like Lawful people, or a common interest like Evil people, because doing Good is a common interest, and it's not about ourselves to begin with."

"You've just made several claims and I don't agree with all of them but since they weren't written down I'm not sure I'd get them right if I tried to go back over them with you."

"Well, do you think - if something is clearly Good, if it helps people and doesn't harm them, then you support it, even if you don't know any of those people?"

"I just said helping people might be Evil some of the time. If they're Evil, depending how you go about it."

"Yeah, that's a very good point. In theory you'd just say - helping them causes more Evil, so it's not really Good to begin with. Of course you can't always tell. But if you think something helps people and doesn't hurt or cause others to hurt people, then are you in favor of that, and willing to help a little, even though you don't know those people yourself? And even though they probably won't pay it back? That's what I think it means to be Good."

"And - I really really don't want you to think I'm saying you're not really Good, or anything like that. I came here hoping to understand you, and other Chelish people. I'm describing how I think so you can tell me if you think I'm wrong, and what you think Good is about. Because - if it was just a lot of different things for everyone, then we wouldn't care so much that they were all 'Good', right? Delegate Wain made that speech and everyone was very - moved, or something, I'm wrong  sometimes about what emotions Chelish people are feeling, but everyone talked about doing Good and fighting Evil and not just - fighting for Iomedae against Asmodeus, say. I want to understand what they, sorry, you all think that means, and whether it's the same thing I mean."

"If I trusted someone who told me that they were trying to help some people who weren't Evil - or help someone Evil in a way that wouldn't help them do any Evil like, uh, painting their house to look cheerier or teaching them to braid their daughter's hair or something, and I had some help to spare which I might not because everybody's busy sometimes, then I'd help. But I'd have to trust them, that's the big hurdle here, if they were evil or mistaken or just kind of confused I couldn't be sure that it was right to help them without checking and that would take time all by itself. I think part of wanting to all be Good together is to make it quicker and easier to find people you can trust like that."

"That's definitely important! And it's very understandable that you'd only do safe things if you can't trust most people. Even if you agree what Good is about you still need to know who is Good. But you can't even ask who's Good if you don't already know - or agree - on what being Good means or why it's important to you. You can avoid Evil people, but Good is more than just not being Evil. Good is making the world better for other people, beyond what you'd do because you just enjoy doing it or you like those particular people, and without making someone else worse off."

"I'm - not sure if I'm not explaining myself well, or if it's just that I said a lot of things and you agree with some and not with others? I admit I was expecting you to have an idea of what Good means to you and when you said it's just a lot of different things I wasn't sure what to think. If you really think there's nothing important in common to all Good, then why do you care about - promoting all Good churches, that's part of your committee, right? Instead of just making a list of the Good gods you know and saying those are the right ones?"

"You're again saying a lot of things and then skipping right past them pretending I agreed with you! Are you like this all the time? Please don't do that, I know you're probably just from a forest and don't talk to people very often at home but it's really kind of an alarming habit to a regular Chelish person."

Oh no. This is almost certainly Feather's fault, this woman seems nice and if she didn't want to talk to Feather she'd just say so.

"I'm sorry! I really don't mean to - assume you agree with anything I say. I want to understand what you think, not to - convince you of anything. Um. Do you want to respond to any one thing I said? Or should I try to ask a really small question? I'm sorry that I'm bothering you, I'm - honestly not trying to waste your time or anything like that. I just want to understand how a Good priestess sees Good."

"You said I can't ask who's Good if I don't already know what it means or why it's important to me. But I absolutely can! I have to! I started out inventing Shelynism from hostile rumors and a wooden bird prop! That didn't stop me from preparing Detect Good if it'd been useful to me back then. It doesn't stop me from having it now. I prepared it this morning." She uses it to spot people in the audience who would be especially valuable to get to know and selectively call on them when she needs audience participation.

Oh no that sounds terrible. Do these humans... each invent for themselves what Good is?

"So, um, I think understand why you wanted to understand Shelyn or find other Shelynites. But why did you want to ask who was Good - besides Shelynites - if you didn't already have some idea of why it's... good, to be Good, and why you'd want to find other Good people? That sounds like what I'm saying, that there's something common to all Good, that thing you were looking for in others."

"So - I think this would be harder if I weren't a cleric, being a cleric makes it very straightforward. For me, Shelyn made the first move, kind of - like I was already praying before but Shelyn's the one who said, you, I want you on my team, you're one of my people and everyone can know it now. So I already know that whatever I was doing then, She liked the look of it! And I can guess that if She's doing something I haven't learned about yet I'll probably like the look of that. But it's not like She's constantly bickering with all the other Good gods, now, is it? They say she's the best of friends with everybody in the Upper Planes. So I can guess that if I knew all about all her friends I'd like them too and I'd like their people too. And it's not like everyone would make a good cleric. Somebody could be a brilliant wizard or an ordinary farmer and just not be suited for the profession. But if they're Good, I still know they're on our team, or they're trying to be, or they've gotten dragged kicking and screaming the whole way maybe but they're here.

"I detect good sometimes to know who's the most valuable new friend in a crowd, because they won't detect at all if they're not pulling hard on the course of the future."

"I think it's true that all Good people can and should be friends!" Finally, finally, someone here gets it. "And I think that's part of what Good means, or maybe even all of it."

"I - don't want to say too much all at once again. Just, that the other three alignments aren't like that. Evil people are selfish. Lawful people can be allies but they can also have different conflicting laws. Chaotic people just - each do what they like, you have to consider them individually."

"Good people are the ones who are friends, or at least allies, with all of each other. And because being Good means helping others, it doesn't exclude anyone, unlike saying you're friends with all of your race or your village or your country. Does that sound right to you?"

"I'm a little worried you're going to try to tell me that since I want to be on team Good I have to support your convention agenda, but I know perfectly well that I do not have to do that, because I don't support your agenda and Shelyn still likes me. But even if you meant something more standard than that, I'm not sure I agree. Erastilians, say. They're Good but they're not very cosmopolitan at all! I'll be happy to go onstage for tourists from anywhere in the world but an Erastilian focuses on their own family and village and farm and I think that's fine for them even if they wind up suspicious of strangers and never go traveling to see who needs help somewhere else."

"I don't mean - well, I do think you ought to support my agenda, but I don't think you're not Good if you don't. I think both of us don't understand Good perfectly well, or each other, or all the relevant facts." Like that animals hurt when you hurt them and so you shouldn't that. "I probably don't really understand the Erastilians either."

"But - you don't have to do what I said, to pursue Good for literally everyone, in order to be Good. No-one does that, or at least no-one mortal. I'm focused on my forest, an Erastilian is focused on their village, you're maybe focused on - the people who come see you, uh, do beautiful things," Feather isn't sure what exactly it is that Laia does 'on stage', "and not those who stay home or live in other cities." 

"But we all still want everyone to have nice things, even all the people we don't know and aren't focusing on. Unless it promotes Evil, like you said. We don't want bad things to happen, even to strangers, unless they prevent Evil. And when we meet another Good person we know we can be allies and maybe friends, because we have that in common."

"That sounds right so far."

"Oh. That's great! I mean, I'm happy that we agree about it. Do you think this is something Chelish people often don't understand about Good, if they're not Good themselves?"

"It might be a Shelyn specialty a little bit, because She's also a goddess of redemption, and of - loving your brother forever even if he has made just the worst choices and always hoping he'll come back. I think Chelish people who are trying to be Iomedaean and not very good at it might especially have this problem."

"I think that's very important. It's easy to work with other Good people, if you both trust each other to be very Good. Most people aren't like that. But like Delegate Wain - or I guess I should call her Select Wain - said earlier, most people have some Good inside them. I have to keep hoping people will act Good who didn't before, because someone explains something to them, or - for any reason - if I had no hope for that, I think I wouldn't know how to live. And - I'm happy other Good people think that too."

Feather smiles happily at Laia. At least some people here know what Good is, even if she had to talk to a cleric of a properly Good Goddess to find one, and even if Laia is afraid to trust her neighbors to be Good as well. At least they don't think Good is some alien thing completely unlike what Feather was taught. Soler didn't understand her but he said himself he might be Lawful and not Good after all.

Now she just needs to explain to them that animals are just as deserving of Good, and just as in need of it, as humanoids. And to make all the other Chelish people Good too. 

But at least it's not worse than she thought, before she came to this city.

"I think people are working on it. And some of them only have little inklings of the littlest things and are only concentrating on those things instead of something else because they're worried about Hell, and - it would be better if they didn't have to be, if the only thing that happened after death when people were awful and vicious to each other in life was that they'd feel embarrassed after they grew up a bit more - but it's what it is and it's got people trying, through the fear."