"Yes, they're people," he chuckles. "They vary a lot, personality-wise, but the dangerous ones don't tend to have much to do with civilized places."

"No?"

"If they're going to develop the inclination, that generally happens early, and they don't start out all that powerful. They'll raze a village or two and then get taken down by an adventuring party."

"Adventuring parties that go slay dragons are an institution?"

"Nothing so organized, but they're not uncommon, no. It's one of the best ways to improve your skills, if you don't mind the risk."

"You don't get better at casting spells just by doing it?"

"Wizards and bards do, but more slowly, and casting them under pressure is more educational. It's a little less clear for clerics and druids, since when we adventure it's usually in service of our devotion, and that's how we grow anyway."

"And your devotion is to - wandering around, or something more specific than that?"

"More or less. New experiences, is how I'd usually put it. Seeing how things are in different places, and the different perspectives that gives people. For me personally; not every cleric of a particular god will have the same focus."

"Why is that something that interests Fharlanghn?"

"It's what travel is for, in the end. There wouldn't be anything special about place if everything was the same no matter where you went."

"Yes, but - why is he invested in you having new experiences?"

"Oh. A few reasons - people who understand the value of that are better able to champion it properly, is the main one; it's important to him that everyone have the option to travel. We end up fulfilling an interesting niche as diplomats - we're intrinsically unaffiliated with any one place, but we have a clear interest in the kinds of conflicts that disrupt travel and trade, so we end up stepping in as neutral parties to help resolve them. We work as guides, too, and having lots of personal experience is obviously helpful there. And while it's always better for people to get out into the world and see things for themselves, when that's not possible, having the outside world come to them is better than nothing; we find ourselves acting as advisers in that way sometimes. Plus it's just... right, for us; that's part of what it means to be a cleric of Fharlanghn, that it's something that we need, and he does like us to flourish."

"I'm trying to figure out... why there exists a person who is a god of travel, in the first place."

"You'd need to find a theorist to tell you much about that, unfortunately. It is true that all gods are gods of things that are deeply important to at least some people, though - not necessarily many people, and not necessarily any humans, but that is a constant. And there are species and human cultures in my world that are nomadic."

"The gods don't know, or don't say?"

"I haven't asked. I'd be surprised if no-one knows, it's just that I don't. It doesn't have any practical implications, as far as I know - we do get new gods sometimes, but it's very rare, the youngest I know of is over a thousand years old."

"What's that one a god of?"

"Pleasure. Lastai, is her name. Relatively obscure, but she's got a good message, I like her."

"No non-compete agreement, huh?"

It takes him a moment to puzzle out the meaning of the phrase. "Of course not; he wouldn't ask us to cut ourselves off from part of the world like that. Not that any god I know of objects to their clerics calling on another god for aid in their domain, if they don't have some kind of feud going on. Some don't allow dual dedication, but even that isn't so rare."

"Do they feud much?"

"Not especially. The patrons of various species more often than the rest, I think because they're more likely to have the kinds of aesthetic disagreements that can't really be resolved. Disagreements that don't quite reach that level are more common - the god of justice and the god of thieves aren't friends, but their followers aren't forbidden from associating with each other, necessarily, it'd just be a very uneasy alliance."

"Can one assume of anyone with the symbol of the god of thieves on that they're a thief?"

"That wouldn't be my first question about the situation; it's rare for them to wear it openly, and he's the god of trickery more than theft exactly. But it's fairly safe to assume that if you know you've got a cleric of Olidammara, yes."