"Yes, that. I don't have my notes from Haven, though, due to unexpectedly being in another world. I can try to do it from memory, or I could tell you more things about the world..." 

Leareth listens, and asks occasional questions, and is utterly impossible to read through the end of the dream. 

When Vanyel wakes up, Hagan's on watch; he is nuzzling his snake and watching the stars.

Vanyel sits up. Keeps his voice low for Fazil's sake. "I'm awake, you can get some sleep now." And he'll take notes, with a tiny mage-light to see what he's doing. 

They have an uneventful night, free of spiders.

The light wakes Vanyel, so he can blearily watch Fazil prepare his spells again, vaguely hoping that if he watches it enough times he'll figure out how to interface his magic with divine magic. (He's not that optimistic but he's still curious about it.) 

Fazil is preparing Water Breathing and Air Bubble and Plane Shift in both his fifth-level slots and then a bunch of other things that won't matter much if they're stuck on the Elemental Plane of Water. When he's done he checks to see whether Hagan has started breakfast - he has - and sighs. "I'd like to say 'Abadar would've said something if this were a terrible idea' but Abadar would not have done that."

"His one good quality. You should get to do things that Abadar thinks are a terrible idea."

"I don't want to do things that Abadar thinks are a terrible idea! He would have a reason and it'd probably be 'you'll die'."

"Our gods definitely don't tell you if something is a terrible idea!" Frown. "That being said, I sometimes get the sense that when mortals do things, terrible idea or not, it could well have been according to Their plan." I've always been a pawn of the gods. He doesn't say that part out loud. 

"There are definitely lots of stories that give you that sense. - more from before prophecy stopped working."

"Huh. Right. If the gods can't use Foresight anymore, then that'd kind of ruin Their ability to do things indirectly." Leareth would think that was fascinating. Vanyel didn't think to mention it the night before. 

"They still do things but - mostly, so far as we know, in the same fashion that nations do things, by giving orders to people who'll listen and learning things through spying or magic and making agreements with each other and so on."

“Do they mostly, er, all have countries like Abadar does?”

"No. That's new, and very unusual - more recent than the death of Aroden - before Aroden died the gods almost never interfered so directly in human governance. Lastwall is run by a paladin order dedicated to Iomedae, but I'm not sure that counts because Iomedae was in that order of paladins before she ascended. And Aroden was the patron of Cheliax, before he died, but more indirectly, he didn't visibly show his hand in choosing its leaders or anything.

Now Abadar has Osirion - Sarenrae helped, I think - and of course Asmodeus has Cheliax."

"Nethys once tried to do the picking-a-pharaoh thing but Nethys is one of the gods who is terrible at having any interfaces that are safe for humans to interact with so he just drove his chosen pharaoh insane and he burned down all Nethys' temples and killed himself."

Mahdi shows up with a gentle pop. "Got a scroll."

"Mahdi's a follower of Nethys."

"Oh, are we talking religion, now - Nethys is omniscient. He's true neutral - doesn't really have teachings or values or priorities - though he is generally understood to have vague positive affect around people learning magic."

"...Ack. I think our gods would probably drive people insane if they tried to directly nominate leaders and work through them in the day to day. Most of them have - avatars, sort of representatives, who're more built to be that interface. Vkandis Sunlord is a god who acts more directly than some of the others, he has a whole country that all worship Him, and He speaks through beings called Suncats." 

"Huh. Is the country any good?"

"I don't know what it was like normally. We just had a horrible war with them, but I don't know that Vkandis told them to start it, I doubt it. He did eventually poke His head in a bit to help end it. But not in a way that made it any less messy." 

"Abadar prohibits Osirion from going to war except in defense of our own land and peoples. But I think lots of gods like how wars have lots of things happening that can turn with a bit of luck -"

"Valdemar also has a policy against starting wars or invading other countries - honestly, I think it's way too strict, or at least was interpreted that way recently, when we were at war with them the King wouldn't authorize us to capture bits of their territory even when it would've been strategically really helpful and we could've given it all back once we'd won, he barely wanted us operating past our actual borders at all. Anyway. Valdemar doesn't really have a patron god, lots of gods are worshipped. The Companions were a miracle and we don't know what god made them, it might've been a lot of gods - King Valdemar prayed to all the gods he'd heard of for it." 

"Huh. - I don't know much about military strategy at all but that sounds way too strict, if you can't operate outside your borders then your enemies can operate in pretty much perfect safety when they're organizing things. If Osirion were attacked we would be allowed to do whatever brought the war to an end in our favor."