"Ah, I see. ... the problem is that the obvious choice is Gorum and I find the concept of war without purpose deeply distasteful." 

"What purpose would you like to have?"

is this what spiritual counseling is like when you're not allowed to hit each other. terrifying. 

"I found it very satisfying to - require people to defend their foolish opinions with force, and either change them or die. As I understand it this is not in principle opposed to Iomedae's purpose as it is what She would like to do to Hell and I would not mind going and joining Her army in Heaven but I am not sure how to apply it during a mortal life since this is apparently not what She is doing on Golarion." She didn't even actually conquer Cheliax! Her army just sort of showed up and politely stood around stopping fights after some unrelated archmages flattened it! This is unhinged conquest behavior!! 

"I don't think it's foolishness in particular that She objects to in Hell."

"No? ... Do you mean that you expect she doesn't think devils are wrong about everything or just that she has more concerns on top of that?" 

"She thinks they are wrong morally, not that they are necessarily incompetent."

Okay but that's the same thing though. 

"...I am not sure I understand the distinction you are drawing if it is not the self-evident fact that Hell is Evil and She is Good." 

"Hell is Evil and She is Good but those aren't - contentless opposites - there is detail and the detail mostly does not take the form of Hell being more likely mistaken on questions of fact or less able to take actions towards its strategic aims."

"I would say losing an entire country is being less able to achieve their strategic aims but I suppose you would know better than I. The detail in question is located in the Acts?" 

He has enough of the Disciplines memorized that he could probably compare across. This is admittedly mostly because it was so funny to quote their own scriptures at the Asmodeans every time they did something stupid the book specifically said not to, so it might not be an entirely representative sample, but probably still enough to be useful. 

"It comes up there but the Acts are not - maximally theologically dense, containing as they do accounts of various battles also. There are commentaries and I have some. One asymmetry between Good and Evil is that Evil is united by force if at all and Good can recruit volunteers to its side which in this case included a party of archmages. I don't know which strategy is broadly more effective and effectiveness is not the constraint driving either side's choice there but it worked out well for Good in this case."

Law has allies, good has friends. 

It's a common saying. When Chelish people say it they say it derisively. Friends, how pathetic, can you imagine thinking that's better. 

Rakek repeats sort of fascinatedly, quietly, "...effectiveness... is not... either..." 

Please hold while gitgud.exe reboots. 

"...so one of the great things about war, right, is the- all going the same direction, willing to die for your purpose rather than surrender it- but in all my experience the purpose is made. As you say, by force. You have to build it in people, the work of Moloch is never done because there will always be another rebellion." This is Asmodean heresy, of course, the party line is that the human spirit can totally be permanently crushed if you try hard enough, but dealing with the fact that it really cannot has been the work of much of Rakek's adult life. Conveniently, which facts Asmodeus does not want you to say is no longer something he is required to track. "But if people on the side of Good just... want the same things, already... you could win the war and still have them, it's just a way to get there. Purpose with war, instead of war with purpose. Is that what you mean?" 

"Yes, that's a good way to look at it, I think. - what I meant by 'effectiveness is not the constraint driving either side's choice' is that Evil couldn't have volunteers in numbers even if it wanted them, and in fact probably couldn't have them even if Evil were more inherently attractive than it is to unpropagandized people because Evil, in being Evil, runs on victims, and even if many wanted to volunteer to victimize far fewer will volunteer to suffer at their hands, so Evil must exert force over whatever swathe of subjects it controls and would still have to do that even if conditions changed in its favor. Meanwhile Good could not react to the information that force was more effective, if that were true, because slavery and coercion are not Good, so they would lose their essential nature in trying to deploy those tools. For all I know Gorum or Irori or someone chooses a mixed strategy to maximize what they can bring to bear on the battlefield but they can mix those strategies precisely because they are neither Good nor Evil."

"I see, I think. ... I am not sure yet what my new purpose should be but I will try to find a Good one, I do not much like the idea of a mixed strategy. When should I check back in with you about whether I am allowed to pick something that involves ever talking to paladins?" 

"If you come back at this time tomorrow I should have had a chance to ask one, they're very busy people but those of them who are delegates all sit more or less in the same area in the convention as me and there's quieter moments where ballots are collected."

Nod. No, on second thought, respectful half-bow. "Until this time tomorrow, then, Chosen Artigas. I will consider your wise counsel." 

This is a stock phrase but for the first time in his life he actually means it. 

"It's Select."

"--Select Artigas. Yes. Sorry." He will now flee before he can say anything else stupid. 

When it looks like no more people are approaching, Olivia walks over herself, heart pounding.

She was… growing more angry, as additional visitors came by. No one here was angry at him! Why wasn’t anyone angry with him! It hadn’t been this overwhelmingly dominant earlier, but seeing the body language of people who had come by made it feel saliently underrepresented. 

“Artigas? The one who used to be a priest of Asmodeus?” she asks, gesturing with the pamphlet she’s been holding onto since this morning.

"Yes."

She stands there awkwardly for a full minute, having expected that her brain would supply her with words once she was actually here. As the silence drags on, she eventually gives up on trying to think of something to say and just spits in his face.

His bodyguard starts forward; Blai holds up a hand - "she's not venomous" - and finds his handkerchief. "Understandable. Is that all?"

“- I - my brother - they took him away - to seminary - do you think he might be - okay?” 

"How long ago?"

“Five years.” 

"In that time if you haven't heard from him he was almost certainly chosen about four and a half years ago, though it's also possible he took his own life in seminary, they don't prevent that with any seriousness. The most common first assignment, after the post-choosing training period under a senior in a major church, is as a village priest, but he could also have been assigned to a ship, the military, a city posting, or a domestic adventuring party, depending on which of his aptitudes were obvious to his superiors. He would probably still be first circle. I think some chosen were able to - disappear somewhere they weren't known, or step down safely within their existing home - but I only know the rates of those outcomes at my fort in the Worldwound which I think was unusually nonlethal for renounced priests, only one in ten dead, and have no numbers for more typical cases. If he was a village priest it would probably be within the same province as his seminary whether or not that seminary was in the same province as your home."