: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.: