Inquirer: I have to admit, Select, I'm a little puzzled that you have asked for this interview.  I stopped you in the street a few days ago and you were very much averse.
Select Artigas: I tried not talking to people about my history.  It didn't work and in retrospect it couldn't.  No shortage of veterans from the Wound would know my name and face and there's nothing stopping them from crossing paths with me.  Of course they'd be confused about my present status.  Sometimes it confuses me.
Inquirer: From the beginning, then, what is that status?
Select Artigas: From 4692 till 4713 I was a cleric of Asmodeus.  Some time after my spells were pulled like everyone else's, I was then re-clericed at the same circle by Iomedae.  I wrote immediately to Lastwall for instructions and while my correspondent was very helpful we didn't have enough time to go back and forth more than a few letters' worth; I'm not yet qualified to join the formal structure of the official Church, which Iomedae's Church uniquely considers an independent question from whether one is empowered by the Goddess.
Inquirer: I'm sure you realize that it's a somewhat difficult story to wrap one's head around.
Select Artigas: Yes.  My supposition is that some combination of my career being spent almost entirely fighting demons and something about my inner attitude resulted in me being Lawful Neutral, an alignment permissible to clerics of both deities, but that doesn't fully explain it.
Inquirer: So you came to the convention in your capacity as a Select of Iomedae.
Select Artigas: That's right.
Inquirer: When you say not talking about your history didn't work, what do you mean?
Select Artigas: Not long after I arrived in Westcrown, a pamphlet came out naming some score of individuals, including me, though they spelled my name incorrectly.  Each name was paired with accusations.  Mine said that I was an Asmodean falsely posing as a priest of Iomedae, which I do understand would make somewhat more sense as a phenomenon in many ways, but Lastwall confirmed my conversion by Commune before replying to my first letter.  You have the copy of the letters I gave you to attach to the interview?
Inquirer: Yes, I do.
Select Artigas: I should not like anyone to divert Lastwall's staff from their business by inviting people to write them about it redundantly; if there is any great number of people in Westcrown who would like it confirmed to better certainty it can be done more cheaply by my submitting to an Abadar's Truth.  But at any rate, someone read the pamphlet and took advantage of the disorder on the night of the riots to accost me with a large group, and I was overwhelmed and killed.
Inquirer: Aren't you afraid that it would put you at risk again, to announce a time at which you'd speak in public?
Select Artigas: I am presently alive at a cost of thousands of gold and did not accomplish anything nearly so valuable as that for my goddess during my time in Her service before my death.  Repeating my previous strategy would be... wasteful.
Inquirer: But you could perhaps simply hire a bodyguard, and otherwise...
Select Artigas: Otherwise what?  Setting aside that I could not afford that, no, I - You're aware that Iomedae has been selecting almost no clerics in recent months?  An entire seminary cohort out of Lastwall is lay priests without the expected fraction awakening to spells, and it isn't down to any change in the curriculum or the recruitment process.
Inquirer: I've heard rumors to that effect.
Select Artigas: But She selected me.  I still don't have half the catechism, I don't have an inspired vision for what wrongs in the world ought to be righted - I suppose I could have told you the Worldwound needed closing but that's done with already - I don't have any special property that should single me out above any one of those qualified seminary graduates, many of whom are here with us in Westcrown doing their best to guide the conversion of would-be Chelish Iomedaeans.
Inquirer: Except...?
Select Artigas: I want to specify here that I am not confident of this.  It's speculation alone.  It may be purest wishful thinking against a reality wherein I have failed entirely to divine my intended purpose or do not have one at all.
Inquirer: Of course.  But your speculation is?
Select Artigas: The one exceptional characteristic I have among priests of Iomedae, empowered and otherwise, is that I can stand here and demonstrate to the people of Cheliax that having lived one's life in service to Hell does not oblige them to despair.  If I was fit for Iomedae, having been for most of my lifetime Asmodeus's hand-picked and empowered slave, then it cannot be pointless for someone who fears for their own soul over more ordinary sins to renounce them and go on from there.  I did not have to martyr myself to get there, and neither do they.
Inquirer: Because you can be sure that you're not Evil.
Select Artigas: No.  Any Good god's clerics can be sure of that.  Iomedae could leave it to Erastil and Shelyn if that were all that needed to be communicated, that not everyone in Cheliax is necessarily evil.  With me, it's - because everyone can be sure that I did many years of Evil.  And now I'm Hers anyway.
Inquirer: I see.  But that wasn't the only thing you said you wanted to mention in this interview.
Select Artigas: Yes.  I also think that - the workings of the Asmodean church were secretive and most people who could have explained them are now dead or in hiding.  I am no longer dead, or in hiding, and I can answer questions about how the ecclesiastical organization functioned, with the caution that I was very much a career Worldwound cleric and did not play church politics beyond the bare minimum.
Inquirer: And by this you'd hope to accomplish...?
Select Artigas: Demystification.  If someone you know was flagged as a potential cleric and you never heard from them again, I have no special ability to track them down, but I can give some idea of what may have gone on during their training - I should warn that I don't expect this information to be very comforting.  If someone's local priest did something seemingly incomprehensible I might have a guess at what internal pressures could have caused it.  I will be able at least some of the time to distinguish between situations where someone who struggled to understand some point of theology was actually missing something - albeit an Evil something - and cases where they were being deliberately lied to and manipulated for some purely mortal reason.  There are probably other reasons someone might want to talk to me, but I don't know them - I've been advised to write a book but I don't have enough idea what people want to know to do that yet.
Inquirer: And you plan to publish again at greater length when you have some idea of what questions will interest people?
Select Artigas: Yes.  I was hoping that you would find this interview of sufficient public interest to start out.
Inquirer: Absolutely.  My mission is to make it known what people are saying.
Select Artigas: That's why I asked you - I was very short with you, the time you asked for an interview before, but I saw a copy later and you had written everything down word for word with no editorial.
Inquirer: And we've seen what happens when pamphleteers take liberties.
Select Artigas: It's possible that the denouncement with my name was faithfully rendered, even if circulations of Select Wain's speech were not.  It has to be faithful both to the account and to the truth.  I will stand by what I say if anyone wants to find me outside convention hours at the temple of Iomedae.
Inquirer: Without their swords, presumably.
Select Artigas: It was actually mostly loose cobblestones and a kitchen knife, but yes, I would prefer to be questioned peacefully.

Inquirer: I have to admit, Select, I'm a little puzzled that you have asked for this interview.  I stopped you in the street a few days ago and you were very much averse.
Select Artigas: I tried not talking to people about my history.  It didn't work and in retrospect it couldn't.  No shortage of veterans from the Wound would know my name and face and there's nothing stopping them from crossing paths with me.  Of course they'd be confused about my present status.  Sometimes it confuses me.
Inquirer: From the beginning, then, what is that status?
Select Artigas: From 4692 till 4713 I was a cleric of Asmodeus.  Some time after my spells were pulled like everyone else's, I was then re-clericed at the same circle by Iomedae.  I wrote immediately to Lastwall for instructions and while my correspondent was very helpful we didn't have enough time to go back and forth more than a few letters' worth; I'm not yet qualified to join the formal structure of the official Church, which Iomedae's Church uniquely considers an independent question from whether one is empowered by the Goddess.
Inquirer: I'm sure you realize that it's a somewhat difficult story to wrap one's head around.
Select Artigas: Yes.  My supposition is that some combination of my career being spent almost entirely fighting demons and something about my inner attitude resulted in me being Lawful Neutral, an alignment permissible to clerics of both deities, but that doesn't fully explain it.
Inquirer: So you came to the convention in your capacity as a Select of Iomedae.
Select Artigas: That's right.
Inquirer: When you say not talking about your history didn't work, what do you mean?
Select Artigas: Not long after I arrived in Westcrown, a pamphlet came out naming some score of individuals, including me, though they spelled my name incorrectly.  Each name was paired with accusations.  Mine said that I was an Asmodean falsely posing as a priest of Iomedae, which I do understand would make somewhat more sense as a phenomenon in many ways, but Lastwall confirmed my conversion by Commune before replying to my first letter.  You have the copy of the letters I gave you to attach to the interview?
Inquirer: Yes, I do.
Select Artigas: I should not like anyone to divert Lastwall's staff from their business by inviting people to write them about it redundantly; if there is any great number of people in Westcrown who would like it confirmed to better certainty it can be done more cheaply by my submitting to an Abadar's Truth.  But at any rate, someone read the pamphlet and took advantage of the disorder on the night of the riots to accost me with a large group, and I was overwhelmed and killed.
Inquirer: Aren't you afraid that it would put you at risk again, to announce a time at which you'd speak in public?
Select Artigas: I am presently alive at a cost of thousands of gold and did not accomplish anything nearly so valuable as that for my goddess during my time in Her service before my death.  Repeating my previous strategy would be... wasteful.
Inquirer: But you could perhaps simply hire a bodyguard, and otherwise...
Select Artigas: Otherwise what?  I obviously should, but it will have to be one who understands and not someone who'll just be in for a rude surprise they might react violently to, and besides, I - You're aware that Iomedae has been selecting almost no clerics in recent months?  An entire seminary cohort out of Lastwall is lay priests without the expected fraction awakening to spells, and it isn't down to any change in the curriculum or the recruitment process.
Inquirer: I've heard rumors to that effect.
Select Artigas: But She selected me.  I still don't have half the catechism, I don't have an inspired vision for what wrongs in the world ought to be righted - I suppose I could have told you the Worldwound needed closing but that's done with already - I don't have any special property that should single me out above any one of those qualified seminary graduates, many of whom are here with us in Westcrown doing their best to guide the conversion of would-be Chelish Iomedaeans.
Inquirer: Except...?
Select Artigas: I want to specify here that I am not confident of this.  It's speculation alone.  It may be purest wishful thinking against a reality wherein I have failed entirely to divine my intended purpose or do not have one at all.
Inquirer: Of course.  But your speculation is?
Select Artigas: The one exceptional characteristic I have among priests of Iomedae, empowered and otherwise, is that I can stand here and demonstrate to the people of Cheliax that having lived one's life in service to Hell does not oblige them to despair.  If I was fit for Iomedae, having been for most of my lifetime Asmodeus's hand-picked and empowered slave, then it cannot be pointless for someone who fears for their own soul over more ordinary sins to renounce them and go on from there.  I did not have to martyr myself to get there, and neither do they.
Inquirer: Because you can be sure that you're not Evil.
Select Artigas: No.  Any Good god's clerics can be sure of that.  Iomedae could leave it to Erastil and Shelyn if that were all that needed to be communicated, that not everyone in Cheliax is necessarily evil.  With me, it's - because everyone can be sure that I did many years of Evil.  And now I'm Hers anyway.
Inquirer: I see.  But that wasn't the only thing you said you wanted to mention in this interview.
Select Artigas: Yes.  I also think that - the workings of the Asmodean church were secretive and most people who could have explained them are now dead or in hiding.  I am no longer dead, or in hiding, and I can answer questions about how the ecclesiastical organization functioned, with the caution that I was very much a career Worldwound cleric and did not play church politics beyond the bare minimum.
Inquirer: And by this you'd hope to accomplish...?
Select Artigas: Demystification.  If someone you know was flagged as a potential cleric and you never heard from them again, I have no special ability to track them down, but I can give some idea of what may have gone on during their training - I should warn that I don't expect this information to be very comforting.  If someone's local priest did something seemingly incomprehensible I might have a guess at what internal pressures could have caused it.  I will be able at least some of the time to distinguish between situations where someone who struggled to understand some point of theology was actually missing something - albeit an Evil something - and cases where they were being deliberately lied to and manipulated for some purely mortal reason.  There are probably other reasons someone might want to talk to me, but I don't know them - I've been advised to write a book but I don't have enough idea what people want to know to do that yet.
Inquirer: And you plan to publish again at greater length when you have some idea of what questions will interest people?
Select Artigas: Yes.  I was hoping that you would find this interview of sufficient public interest to start out.
Inquirer: Absolutely.  My mission is to make it known what people are saying.
Select Artigas: That's why I asked you - I was very short with you, the time you asked for an interview before, but I saw a copy later and you had written everything down word for word with no editorial.
Inquirer: And we've seen what happens when pamphleteers take liberties.
Select Artigas: It's possible that the denouncement with my name was faithfully rendered, even if circulations of Select Wain's speech were not.  It has to be faithful both to the account and to the truth.  I will stand by what I say if anyone wants to find me outside convention hours at the temple of Iomedae.
Inquirer: Without their swords, presumably.
Select Artigas: It was actually mostly loose cobblestones and a kitchen knife, but yes, I would prefer to be questioned peacefully.