So that's what Chaotic Stupid looks like. Don't do it, Sosiel, he's not worth giving up your ideals for. And, as noted, incentives.

Right how about a court deals with this? It may have to be a court martial, but - not the field force still bleeding from his treason, at any rate.

And we can have our first formal battle: A skirmish, really - a company-sized engagement with the disorganised cultists fleeing our victory at Kenabres. Still it is an engagement in which both sides form a fighting line and push the pikes; that's a battle, even if it's entirely one-sided. Best sort of battle, that.

Abramo's forces have grown beyond the point where their morale is a part of their personal relationship with Abramo, and he will have to turn to the traditional means of army management: In a word, propaganda. It's a good problem to have; wars are not won by special-forces strike teams no matter how mythic. It's still a problem, though. He will make a start by translating into local idiom some of the more famous propaganda of his own world.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of Iomedae's long sword
She is triaging disaster in despite of Hell's foul Lord
She hath loosed Her mythic heroes on the vile Abyssal horde
Her army marches on!

Glory, glory, Iomedae! (3x)
Her army marches on!

I have seen Her in the Wardstones where they hold the demons back
Thus Her shield protects Her army while it readies to attack
She hath righteously triaged them to ruin and to wrack
Her army marches on!

Glory, glory...

I have read a Lawful gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
"As ye deal with my alliance so with you my Law shall deal
Let my hero, born of woman, crush Deskari 'neath his heel
My army marches on!"

Glory, glory...

She hath sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat
She defends the righteous fallen at Pharasma's judgment seat
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Her! Be jubilant, my feet!
Her army marches on!

Glory, glory...

Aroden born of Azlant died for glory over sea;
His Inheritor fights on with aid from mortals - you and me
Though this Age is not of Glory, let us live to make men free!
Our army marches on!

He is not vastly impressed with his own poetry in Taldane, but - it will serve. His soldiers are not very critical; it's good enough for a hundred men to sing while marching down a muddy Mendevian road with a battle at its end, and that's what matters. 

Privately he is, actually, somewhat concerned at using the names of these 'gods', where the original had the Lord even if it was the heretical Christian version. But - the commandment is to have none before the Name; it does not actually say not to mention them at all. And anyway, are they even gods? They could just as well be very powerful aliens, using human mortal agents for their own reasons... Anyway he is doing this for the war effort, and practically everything is licit if it is to save a life; on that much, at least, he feels on firm ground. It will admittedly be hard to say exactly how many lives are saved by the morale effects of a good marching song; it's one of those want-of-a-nail things with a small probability of a large effect. If some particular soldier feels just enough braver that he doesn't turn and flee, and so does not trigger a rout, and does not collapse a flank, and does not lose a battle, and does not destroy an army in the retreat... that could be very many lives indeed. But he will never know. 

At any rate he is not worshipping Iomedae, just singing about her. There is no commandment against song. 

I'm going to start mentioning but not detailing minor encounters.

We meet some scouts in the road; they turn out to be drow cultists of Deskari. Fortunately Abramo does not touch the tea. 

And we can do the Conundrum Unsolved, whose ghost has the courtesy to inform us that it is a teaser and not meant for serious security against intruders.

And we can take the ford at Vilareth, with an unsustainable rate of casualties however.

We'll get some reinforcements from Horgus Gwerm, and with their aid easily overrun a band of mercenaries who should have inquired about the fine print in the Abyss's insurance. And we'll have a quick skirmish with some marauders in Nightinggale Grove, in which Nenio goes 0 for 4 on the ranged touch attacks.

And we will get an appeal for help from a Hellknight order; and everyone except Ember will speak against aiding them, for one reason or another.

And yet - everyone agrees that they are allies; they just don't want them to be. Admittedly the name 'Hellknights' is not auspicious. But who will join your alliance, if you do not come to the defense of those who have? Japan was no liberal democracy either, but they fought the Jackal's German cat's-paws from the Indus to the Rhine, and the war would have been lost without them.

"Very well; we will march to the sound of the" - no guns in this war. "The sound of the gargoyles."

Prophecy is, of course, broken on Golarion; but mythic heroes can break many rules, and Abramo gets a... premonition... a repeated premonition in fact - that the gargoyles are too hard a target for his existing army. In the light of this intelligence he pauses for a few days to bring up reinforcements from Kenabres, and meanwhile investigate Moondance Grove. Where the plagued smilodons are also very tough up close, but fortunately Abramo has another premonition and orders some summons to keep them at a distance from the non-expendable party members. 

Woljif isn't going to show it, but nonetheless "non-expendable" is possibly the nicest thing anyone has ever called him.

The azata has actually been called much nicer things, and is frankly rather miffed at being considered expendable. The whole point of Good is that nobody is expendable.

Yeah that would be Chaotic Good, and anyway Abramo is Lawful Neutral. So far, anyway.

Wilcer observes that our equipment is good enough for Kenabres, and not really up to the much tougher environment of the inner Worldwound.

Then we shall have better equipment. Ropes, hardened boots, warhorses, artillery, tanks, aircraft, battleships - whatever is needed. If civilisation has any advantage over barbarism it is the sheer productivity of industry applied to war. Pour It On.

And by emptying the treasury for mercenaries and a general with extra command ability improved staff procedures, we can put together an army capable of taking on the blocking force of gargoyles, and in fact overcoming them with a very low rate of casualties. Langton's Laws still hold: The more you use the fewer you lose.

Then we shall go and meet with these "Hellknights".

Who will immediately demonstrate that the nickname isn't chosen at random, by murdering wounded soldiers who would otherwise slow down a retreat.

Ruthless, at best, but... conceivably necessary, in a desperate situation, to get the other soldiers moving. It does not seem to Abramo to set up the best incentives.

Gargoyles turn out to be not that formidable against a group where everyone has access to magic that pierces their damage resistance, although indeed they can walk through ordinary soldiers, even ones armed with cold iron that cuts demons, without particularly noticing.

Regill explains that the gargoyles seem to be attempting to take prisoners, presumably not for the purpose of putting them behind barbed wire and giving them food and Red Cross packages. 

"Why does anyone still follow you?" Seelah bursts out, echoing Abramo's thought about incentives. 

"Because we are Hellknights" is not actually a good answer to that question, which is about why anyone would choose to become a Hellknight in the first place. However, the gargoyles renew their attack before Abramo can pursue the point.

Smite Good will definitely work on Hellknights, right?