"Makes sense. ...Hey, in some science fantasy settings there aren't any gods around, what about your world?"

"We...don't really have any proof either way. We have religion--I'm moderately religious--but we can't really prove it."

"...So on the one hand no divine magic but on the other hand you don't get hit by lightning if you mispronounce a god's name during a storm?"

"Actually, my God's name is nothing but consonants. You're literally not supposed to say it at all. You just call him 'God' or 'The Lord'. But you don't get struck by lightning if you try anyway, no."

"I mean, that's not really consistent and divine healers save more people than gods personally kill, but I do consider smiting to be a drawback of the system."

"No smiting, no. Sometimes people blame him for unpleasant coincidences--usually when they happen to people the blamer doesn't like so that they can claim God is on their side, but those people are mostly just jerks."

"Ha. That happens in our world too. Usually it's Khersians."

"...The largest religious majority in my country right now is called the Christians. That's an interesting phonetic coincidence."

"Do they worship a god named Khersis?"

"No, it's a little complicated, but their religion is actually an offshoot of mine characterized by their belief that Yeshua ben Yusuf who lived a couple of millenia ago was the Son of God. There was this prophesy about a messiah that he think he fits, and the Greek word for messiah is Christ, so they're called the Christians because they believe that he was the Big Chosen One, basically."

"That's... pretty different from religions where I'm from."

"I think I'm missing a lot of the salient details, the most interaction with the religion I've really had is celebrating the secular version of their big winter holiday."

"There's secular Khersentide too."

"I assume that's their winter holiday?"

"Solstice, yeah. When Khersis was incarnated a lot of events in his life happened on or around it so that's when the Feast of Khersen is."

"Jesus--the form of Yeshua most people use nowadays--was supposedly the incarnate form of God as well as his son. I'm not totally sure how that works, something about God having multiple parts or something--and Christmas--the winter holiday--is supposedly the day he was born."

"I can't remember if Khersis's mortal incarnation was born on Khersentide or if that's when he died or what, I'm not really Khersian. Or anything, really."

"There's a whole 'nother holiday about Jesus dying, it's almost as heavily commercialized as Christmas. So...how do gods work in your world? I mean, you heavily implied that they exist...does not being anything really mean that you just don't favor any particular one or something? I think in my universe people who say that are atheists or agnostic mostly."

"I'm not an atheist, they exist, Mother Khaele was on television a few months ago insensitively commenting on a hurricane. I just don't... like... them."

"All things considered I think that's fair, especially if they go on television insensitively commenting on hurricanes."

"I'm a little reluctant to talk too much about it though because - I know this is a weird place, maybe nobody can hear me, but blasphemy is in the same category as conducting experiments."

"Aha. Okay, subject dropped. So, you mentioned having a television, those are pretty complicated technology in my world, how do yours work?"

"Magic. I don't know much about the details - it's an applied enchantment thing; I think the shows themselves are mostly handled with illusion-school stuff though."

"We don't have any kind of magic, unless you count mutant powers, which we don't, but by we I mean people like my immediate family, not absolutely everyone."

"I only have high school level magic plus a couple specialty college courses - Arcane Defense, intro elementalism for non-arcanists. Subtle arts is kind of a heavy major."