"We'll definitely look into doing something about those for you, yep. I'm actually wondering the most about how things are going to go with us - all the oerth clerics - and your god of trade, He sounds like one of the more important ones and I suspect there's a bit of a philosophical difference - most of our gods are fairly opinionated about how their spells are used regardless of money changing hands."

"I mean, you wouldn't see a Pharasmin making undead, since like I said they hate that, there's lots of things like that, but - Abadarans are the backbone of coordination and cooperation the world over." It was one of a million little philosophical disquiets, that Mammonites could not run the Chelish banking system well enough, that they had to tolerate a handful of Abadarans barely paying lip service to primary worship of Asmodeus, because a Mammonite will embezzle and cannot get underwritten by overseas concerns and you'd have to be a fool to take out a loan from one, and an Abadaran just doesn't have that problem, and doesn't have that problem specifically because their Law is stronger...

"It'll be interesting."

"What kind of opinionatedness do you mean?"

"They don't just care about which spells we offer, They care about how they're used, basically. Fharlanghn's probably the least picky, I can sell spells with no problem as long as they aren't obviously going to be used to enslave someone or something, but - okay, for example, the other god I follow is the goddess of pleasure, and if one of Her clerics made a wand of Cure and someone used it to fight undead I expect She'd be annoyed, that's not the kind of thing She intends Her spells to be used for."

"...wow. And this isn't because she's... also pro-undead for some reason, just because it's not Her central concern? - how do Her clerics ever go up in circle, is She just doing it by fiat every time if they can't get into fights?"

"She's not pro-undead but She doesn't really condone fighting in general - that might be another physics difference? Last time I went up a tier I'd just finished overseeing a big construction project, we don't need to get into fights."

"Was the construction project... high stakes in some way? You hear about people getting more powerful from... rescue missions in natural disasters, risky intrigue or diplomacy, but - research in doing it on purpose safely has borne little fruit and was ethically unconscionable to boot, may Hell be denied another soldier... Gods can improve Their clerics by fiat but it's expensive for their intervention budgets. Abadar is known to do it particularly dramatically when He selects a new pharaoh for His theocracy."

"It was complicated and I definitely could have failed at it but it wasn't dangerous, especially? Most of the challenge was keeping the workers safe, we were opening a mountain pass back up after some kobolds had been living in the area and there had been a few rockslides and a bridge collapse. Our gods do give fiat tiers but it's expensive, yes."

"The danger doesn't necessarily have to be to the person, like in the rescue mission case the understanding is that this works because if they fail whoever they're rescuing will be hurt even if the rescuer is in perfect physical safety throughout."

"Okay, hm... Oh, I got a tier for it the first time I wrote a book, actually, that seems like a clear-cut case."

"If that happened on Golarion I would expect it to be by purest fiat and a very strong endorsement of the book."

"It's still in circulation last time I checked but it wasn't that impressive."

"What's it about?"

"Mixed orc-goblinoid societies in the northern yellow mountains, with a focus on how to travel through the area without offending them. I was due for a tier, too."

"Oh, if you were already very close it's less strange to me."

"It works that way for wizards, too, for another thing; I suppose you could say that was all Boccob's doing but it seems out of character."

"Wizards on Golarion bridge some of the gap with study alone and I have heard they can get to second, or rarely if they are particularly brilliant even third, without participating in combat much. Is Boccob the god of arcane magic here? Ours is Nethys."

"Yep. He does have a church but the god Himself is quite reclusive and the church is very small for how powerful He is. Anyway, I wouldn't be too surprised if Zelena gets a nice chunk of a tier for our research project, even at her circle."

"I have heard a rumor that Nethys's high priestess has been known to increase in circle by doing research projects some of which blew up her church."

Raafi laughs. "Wizards are the same in every world, huh."

"Apparently! But it had been my impression that the danger of explosion was in itself substantially helping her along there."

"I'm pretty sure it's mostly down to how intellectually challenging the problem is, here, based on how excited my wizard friends get when I bring them various puzzles. The more confusing the explanation the happier they are about it, especially if they don't need to risk any limbs."

"Wizards are like that at home also, it's not as though everyone is always and only motivated by becoming more powerful. Though I did disproportionately meet those, as the Worldwound was a good place to get steady well-justified fights appropriate for a variety of circles."

"Fair enough. I haven't made a proper study of it, I only have anecdotes and common wisdom, accurate as that seems to be in this case. If you'd like a book on the subject I can see about renting one from the library tomorrow."