:Uh, if I don't do as Her precepts indicate She'll withdraw the magic, but none of the precepts are... personal... in the way you're thinking, they're things like not lying and operating openly and doing good in the world.:

"Huh. So, she doesn't have sex with you? What an unusual dom, to be asexual and so prosocial." He's less interested in meeting her now for the purposes of becoming a sub but still interested in her for the novelty. "I've never heard of any effect that could bestow casting ability on another, but I'm not learned in that."

:Your model of the situation is INCORRECT. My inability to explain it in a way that makes better sense to you DOES NOT MAKE IT CORRECT.:

Kanuwa looks incredibly uncomfortable.

"Okay. I'm sorry." He is going to disengage from the conversation now.

:I should really have anticipated that it would look...like that...when you said Iomedae was a person...and explained that to you. Relationships that have asymmetric dynamics like that are common here.: He should also probably think better on how to transmit the concepts across the ontological gap.

:If you have a suggestion for how to explain without giving anyone a mistaken impression I would gladly entertain it.:

:Hmm, I'll have to think about that. One of the things is that we don't have the concept of deities or gods that you do. And when I try to translate it...I think people think I'm talking about something metaphorical, or something like a term of endearment. Like calling your romantic loved one 'sugar'.

I would suggest refraining from saying that Iomedae is a person, and saying that 'Iomedae' is the name of a foreign Way, but I don't know if that falls afoul of your 'not lying' precept. It's not false, but not...maximally accurate.:

Oh no, did they offend the foreign person in some way. Senat is Very Concerned. He doesn't seem to be leaving though, so it can't be that bad?

He is also Very Concerned that he forgot to ask the healer to come and sample the food before he served it. What a terrible mistake. He's going to quickly get a little of each one and bring it to the clinic.

The food is completely fine.

:I could - preferentially refer to my religion rather than my deity and say that it is like a foreign Way, pending another way to describe it.:

:That seems wise. Or...you said that Iomedae used to be human. Is it possible for you to say that Iomedae was a paragon of the Way of Iomedae, such that it became named after her, in your country? Paragons are...people who embody a Way very strongly in some specific aspect, and become famous for this. Like Sarata and Maye the Roadbuilders, who built the Old Roads and made the Roadbuilders Society, or Shuku the Librarian, who created the Archivists Society.:

:Well, actually in life she was herself empowered by a different god. Who died about a hundred years ago. So that would be a - complicated - assertion.:

:Oh. How complicated. Um...oh! I do know that certain places meditate by visualizing their Ways as people, often though not necessarily as paragons who have been confirmed to actually exist. It's not popular in this region. I could say that people where you're from relate to Ways like that? And you have...a more fine division of the ways than us, and that you relate to your Way as though a person.

Ugh, that doesn't fully fix things though, because there are lots of people that do this and relate to the visualized persons in a sexual way, or find them sexually attractive. Especially Flowers practitioners. But it does avoid people thinking that you're in a romantic or sexual relationship with Iomedae. We could avoid it if Iomedae valued chastity or something and you could attest to that. That's often a Perfect precept, sometimes Tranquil or True.:

:The Acts don't specify if she vowed celibacy but it is not uncommon for paladins so she might have and she definitely wasn't married.:

:...sorry, I'm running out of ideas. I'm struggling to think of a concise and accurate way to convey the fact that Iomedae is a person, in the sense of being a sapient entity with values, while also not being a concrete entity that exists in this plane. And that she can bestow spells on people who act in a way in accordance with her precepts, as though a Way. The Ways as we understand them are not people, so there's kind of a bind, there. I'll have to think about it a bit more.

What's a paladin?:

:There's no shortage of entities who exist in other planes! I can summon some of them! She's just an unusually powerful and influential example of those who passed through being a human first. A paladin is - for your purposes a paladin is a lot like a cleric, really, with different powers but also empowered by a god to carry out that god's will. They have to be Lawful Good in particular and can only be empowered by gods within one step of that alignment, unlike clerics, who can be all over the alignment chart as long as they're within one step of their god specifically. Iomedae is I think alone among gods in empowering more paladins than clerics; paladins of anyone else eligible to choose them are rare.:

:Wow, we don't have any summoning workings like that here. None that I know of. Some other Open practitioners — who are richer than me — might pay for you to cast one for them. For the novelty of it.

Hmm...I'll have to think more about how to approach the Iomedae PR problem. I'm not the most charismatic person.

Unrelatedly, I realize that Raye probably forgot something — we should get you a legal identity. So that you can make sworn statements and such. I think she'll be willing to reimburse you for the expense. She's super busy so it makes sense that she'd forget. Or maybe there's already a file on you and this is unnecessary, though I doubt that. Do you have identification documents yourself?:

:I have... letters addressed to me...?:

:I mean things that you have that let you say, legibly, that you are you and aren't an impersonator or this other guy with a similar spoken name who's a criminal or whatever. I don't have mine on me, but it looks like...: and he sends a vision of a square plate of wood, about six by six inches, with his legal name on it — it's a bunch of random syllables? the vision implies that they aren't meant to be 'meaningful' — plus his 'spoken names', which include 'Kanuwa', and has his date of birth and place of birth and the fact that he's an Open practitioner signaled by the symbol on it: two concentric circle with the diameter of the bigger circle arranged vertically. The plate has a True effect that emanates from it which is keyed to him and the True practitioner that produced the artifact.

The vision implies that it can be made of different materials in other places like paper, but all of them contain the same information.

:The assessor would prefer that you present this before you make sworn statements to them, though it's not required, since they can just fold in the statements you'd need to swear to the casting. It will just require a little more energy.:

:I am almost certainly the only third circle cleric of Iomedae with my name but I don't have a document asserting that and wouldn't expect being verified to have cast a third circle spell to be a thing that would contribute usefully to this process.:

:Oh, that part is separate. The legal identity simply allows you to be visible in the eyes of the state and allow you to make contracts and vote and such. Actually I'm not sure if you'd be able to vote, I think no? Not for ten years I think. Afterwards you can make sworn statements and proofs about what you are and how you are what you claim you are, which people would most likely want to see before they believe what you say. I agree that casting a third circle spell won't help because we don't look at spells in terms of circles, so it would be a concept from your ontology. Typically people get theirs registered when they're born, or near so.

Oh, there's also the adulthood examination certificate, but I'm unsure if you'll need it...it can also be used as an identification document. It looks like...: basically the same thing but instead saying that they passed, and at what center they did the exam in. :I think no one would contest your adulthood, though it is the case that you're illiterate in our language.:

:I'll be able to read but not write it if I have Comprehend Languages active.:

He purses his lips and unpurses them, making thinking noises. :I'm not sure that's enough for legal purposes though I'm not sure how important it is. I think they could special case you. See, typically you need the adulthood certification to be able to join Societies or get apprenticeships and vote. Actually, I might have misspoke – I forget whether you need the adulthood certificate or just the birth certificate to be able to make contracts...I'm not being a very good guide right now. Sorry about that.:

:I'm wondering whether, legislatively, they'll use the structure of Societies for Golarion gods, or whether they'll create a new type of legal entity. Or whether they'll allow them in the first place. I don't think it's politically feasible to censor people from learning about them or from you from talking about them, though, because many people would throw a fit if the Federation imposed censorship laws. Including yours truly. But I think they could ban their worship or accepting clericships or paladinships from them as engaging in unlicensed foreign diplomacy. Uh, stop me if this idle speculation is uninteresting to you.: The tone implies that this question is brought to Blai by long suffering experience.

:It is very important that I be legally allowed to worship Iomedae. If other people aren't that would be a disappointing thing to learn about a government and I'd want to leave for a friendlier jurisdiction as soon as possible but if I'm not then I have a very serious problem.:

:Um, well, the Federation's territory extends throughout the whole continent. There's another continent but you'd have to pass through the unclaimed southern lands, which are very cold, or travel by sea to it. Except that hasn't been possible since the Cataclysm, because of the monsters and whirlpools and storms that are common in the open sea. If this was to come to pass, I think traveling to the unclaimed lands south is the best bet. We're very far away from it though.

I think if they don't totally ban the worship of Golarion gods, they'll permit Iomedae. My money is on them not totally banning it — it seems that the gods could cleric anyone who comprehends their nature sufficiently well and whose shape is suited to them, quite similar to spontaneous Awakening, really, and since censorship is very politically fraught, they'd want to ally with the agreeable gods so as to shield themselves from the deleterious effects of the bad ones. I might go to the casino and gamble about it, now that I think about it.:

The twisting clauseful sentence is more comprehensible through Telepathy since it doesn't have to be linear.