"Understood, I'll redact names. There was a god of dance, love, art, song, and 'meetings'; and a god of death, here."

"A god of death does not superficially sound like a good thing, separate from the common necromancy taboo—the other sounds unobjectionable, if they are not otherwise belying."

"They use necromancy to what I think is very beneficial effect, here, there are many skeletons under well-managed control and it allows the living a great deal of leisure and wealth. The skeletons are not suffering, which was my main Golarion-influenced concern, and the king is Lawful Good, which would be hard to accomplish for a lich on Golarion. But I agree with your assessment of the facial concerningness of the two."

"If they were a god of necromancy, I would be less concerned than them being a god of death. Necromancy is simply a type of magic interacting with the bodies of dead creatures. If a goddess of defeating evil wishes to defeat evil and for people to defeat evil, and a goddess of art prefers for there to be art and artists, does a god of death not prefer there to be death and for people to die? Or is there a fundamental element I misunderstand?"

"It may be that She just approves of the necromantic system endemic to Khelt, which, given its immortal king, implies less commitment to the widespread applicability of death than has the death and creator goddess of Golarion, and She's generally all right, albeit not so much so that I chose to deliberately introduce Her. According to the report I received there wasn't much discussion of the local death goddess's goals, but her domains included the afterlife, which I am quite agnostic as to the nature of for souls here."

Well, the god of death being approving of perpetual defiance of death via probable lichdom is better than the alternative, she supposes.

"The Antinium do not know of any credible claims of an afterlife. This is news to us. Did the god make particular factual claims? What does their cleric believe?"

"I can read you the report." He does this.

So the god didn't say anything, really.

"Uninformative."

She pauses a while to think.

"Would you like to hear our accounts, now?"

"Please."

"I was in Liscor's Hive. The god appeared in the reflection of my scrying pool, while I was working on a spell. God of magic, it said. It promised spells, knowledge, power. It hinted at knowing of the god under Rhir, with allusions to our progenitor. Its approach was poorly aimed, revealing a lack of understanding of the nature of the Antinium and our history.

"I did not trust it. It was... scheming. It sought conspiracy, not alliance. It refused to say what it wanted: not worship, but unspecified services in the future.

"My answer was that I would consider it, but could not accept an agreement I did not understand. To which it said, 'In a year, I will come again. We will see if you have changed your mind.' And it left."

It had been tempting. Very tempting. It is Xrn's belief that magic is their only possible path to victory. In Skills and Levels, it is possible the Antinium may never again reach their old heights, and those heights failed, utterly, run aground on the sleeping god of Rhir with little to show for it. But in magic, Xrn has only grown wiser and deeper in all these years, whereas Klbkch has grown weaker, and Wrymvr... has struggled to find opportunities to level, and deteriorated in other ways since their landfall in Izril.

But an offer which cannot even pretend at transparency, which offers gifts with invisible strings, cannot be trusted.

"...if you would be interested in an arrangement with a Golarion god, I would not ordinarily choose to propagate the Golarion god of magic - He is true neutral and has no particular hesitancy about choosing Evil clerics nor tendency to choose the most restrained and prosocial forms of that alignment - but His high priestess on Golarion is one of the most powerful people alive and serves as an example that it is possible to be His and also - cooperative. If the situation at hand is likely to require such power I would be willing to describe Him to you."

"I am unsure what what the situation at hand requires. The situation in Rhir would benefit from power, but does not hinge on it alone. Does the Golarion god of magic patronize his clerics in different ways? Your descriptions of clerics that I know of were not relevantly impressive.

"I would be willing to consider it, but am hesitant to... introduce influences into my mind. Perhaps with more study of the enclericed, or observing the effects on another Antinium cleric, of which there are currently none. I do not believe it to be an immediate priority, but would revisit this some other day if you are amenable."

"The clerical powers are largely the same with some unique spells or spells offered at lower circles per deity, but I think He might be unusually willing to circle you up by fiat if you were going to do interesting magic that way. You picked up Prestidigitation on sight almost immediately, I think that's the kind of thing He'd like. Unfortunately His higher circle clerics are understood to go quite reliably mad - not in a way where they can't do magic but - it impairs their ability to have normal conversations with normal people - I have never met one powerful enough that I was confident this was operative and don't know much more about how it works."

"...Then I believe I shall abstain."

"Understandable. It just seemed to bear mentioning."

"My own encounter was at a similar time to Xrn's. I was clearing a monster infestation in a tunnel. The god appeared around a corner. I knew what it was, almost immediately. It called itself the god of war. It said the god of Rhir was its half-sister. Its offer was simpler: she would aid us against the god of Rhir, in return of our worship. It claimed it would be impossible for us to defeat it, otherwise.

"After consideration, I said I did not believe I could do such a thing. It said I did not have to volunteer myself; grant her a group of Soldiers, and she could prove herself."

He hesitates.

"I concluded I could not decide unilaterally. I convened with my Queen, and she communicated with the other Queens, and Xrn and Wrymvr. Xrn and Wrymvr were unable to reached, likely because they were engaged in their respective conversations as well, although it is unclear by what mechanism they were rendered uncontactable. Before we could conclude, the god said we did not have to decide immediately. Whomever wished to receive its gifts only needed pray to it, and they would be rewarded."

"Are you aware of any other people who've been contacted by any gods?"

"Only Wrymvr. He was contacted by a 'god of lost things', or possibly a 'god of the forgotten'. He did not understand much of what it was trying to communicate, and attempted to melt it."

"I assume that didn't work."

"It did not."

"Is there anything new going on with Voyager Keisha that you know of?"

"When I scried her two days ago, she was in Zeres. I believe she has been selling channels."

"But no information on whether she's introducing religion-as-a-concept to an extent that attracts local gods?"