Magic fertilization makes sense; Earth already has magically-assisted industrial chemistry. Magic healing of diseases, likewise. The nonmagical solutions to these problems really aren't obvious and having a 'good enough' solution with artificial scarcity will direct both market forces and individual inventors towards trying to improve existing techniques and alleviating the scarcity, not towards entirely different avenues of research. Improvements in either would obviously help, but - something's wrong with the rest of the story.

Areas that are good for farming have a lower proportion of the population working the land, while land-poor countries have eighty or even ninety percent farmers? That's the opposite of what both Malthus and common sense would predict! Are the divines holding each country's population constant somehow, no matter how many or how few farmers it takes to feed them? 

No, it must be a coincidence. England has poor land (as far as Tanya can recall) and an inconvenient climate and it both industrialized and liberalized first, while Russia has the best farms of the continent coupled with the worst productivity and was stuck in serfdom until the Communist revolution. Neither condition was caused by poor or rich land, or not directly. 

Sorcha thinks freeing up agricultural labor would enable more industry. On Earth it works the other way around; people flee the countryside as soon as work is available in the cities, and the cities purchase the same food they were already consuming. As long as farms are families and not businesses they are subject to the Malthusian trap: they have not merely as many workers as they need to produce food but rather as many as they can feed without starving. Maybe life as a farmer isn't so bad here, with magic more widely available than on Earth, and so people aren't rushing to the cities even though the cities want them? But then improving farm productivity wouldn't help. ...Tanya doesn't have the time to solve all the riddles herself and will simply ask directly.

"I would expect population to grow to the limits imposed by food supply and disease. In your example of rich and poor countries, why is the difference in the proportion of farmers rather than in the total size of the population? If industry doesn't have enough workers, that means people prefer to remain farmers; how will making farming more productive solve that? ...are people willing and able to refrain from having children, and if so who or what determines their number of children?"

"You know, I haven't heard it framed that way before, but your logic makes sense."

Aroden never talked about that, but maybe he never actually hit the limits, or maybe Sarusan's Tanya's homelands magic is very different.

"I think cities are limited by disease and sanitation in how dense they can get?  I guess that is another thing, if your magic has any good mass sanitation approaches.  The more successful larger cities tend to have sewer systems I think, but then you need to keep them clear of monsters.  For overall population... I think in practice monsters and disasters limit the population before the land does?  Like Taldor has been around for millennia and still hasn't made that much progress on some of the old growth forests.  If it is just a matter of needing more land to farm, people can risk clearing old-growth forests, with the risk being angering Druids or Fey or triggering various kinds of monster attacks.  I'm not sure how much people in general prefer cities or countryside... this sounds like the sort of thing the Abadarans have done analyses on, it just hasn't been relevant to Lastwall in the past century, we haven't really had the slack to try initiating any sort of systematic reorganizations."

She thinks a bit, trying to consider Tanya's framing.  One idea does stand out to her.

"You know, I think an analysis of balancing points of population might be useful for us understanding the Orcs to the north of us."  She points at the map at where the Hold of Belkzen Orcs are.

"I think the common assumption is that all the Orc Gods being Evil is why they are constantly engaged in raids and warfare, but they do tend to have litters of two to five children per pregnancy, and they reach early adulthood in only 12 years... so if that is there way of dealing with populations beyond what the land could otherwise support...  Sorry this is kind of a tangent.  I think you might have some interesting theories of societal development that at the very least the Abadarans would be interested in.  Aroden's church would also be interested if they were still around in a meaningful fashion..."  She trails off, distracted by considering the implications of a world were Aroden didn't die.

You need to keep sewers clear of monsters? What the fuck are the local 'gods' doing - oh, right, these people have a 'goddess of disease'. Probably there's a 'god of sewer overflow' causing animated shitstorms or something. 'Monsters' (or druids) defending old-growth forests makes sense, that's the kind of thing many people empirically want to defend, but sewers?!

"What are human families like? How many children do they have, how many reach adulthood and have children of their own, and what determines those numbers?"

"I think most human families might have anywhere from four to eight children, but maybe around a quarter die as babies and around another quarter die before adulthood.  I think disease is the most common problem?  A channel from a cleric can cure most injuries, but only helps a little with disease, and there aren't enough third circle and above clerics to entirely rely on divine magic to solve it.  Wealthy people can almost always afford the healing to cure their children's diseases, well-off people might struggle to put together the money or get high enough on the waiting list, depending on how demand is. Like during a plague third circle spells are sold at high price or triaged carefully, depending on the churches' exact philosophy.  Or during a famine, you know Create Food and Water is also third circle and that can also shift demand for third circle spell sharply upward."

Three adult children in a family on average. If the population is stable, something is killing a third of adults before they can have children of their own. War? Bandits? Religious celibacy? None of those can be solved directly by technology.

"If disease is the main cause of mortality, improving farm productivity won't help much. Industry is concentrated in cities and so is disease. Sanitation and nonmagical cures for diseases would normally help but I'm worried the local gods prefer the current situation and would intervene to rebalance the system. They could make disease-fighting spells even more expensive, or block sanitation by arranging for 'sewer monsters', or just introduce more virulent diseases directly... there's no point in acting if that's going to happen." Sorcha probably doesn't do diplomacy with the divine factions, that's religious affairs. "In the past, did improvements - in technology, society, sanitation or anything else - arise naturally through people inventing and spreading them, or did they tend to require divine backing?"

"I... I think you are being unnecessarily fatalistic?  For one, I don't think any spells have ever gone up in circle or had their material components change?  I can think of a few cleric spells that have gone down in circle or been improved over the past millennia, I think normally in response to wizards reverse engineering them and improving on them and the Gods eventually copying that?  And I can think of a lot of wizard spells that have gone down in circle or at least been improved.  Wizards magic has overall improved over the centuries and I don't know of any avenues the Gods have for making wizards spells higher circle or more costly in the first place, there magic isn't like cleric magic where a god grants it.  I think the Evil Gods already throw as much monsters at mankind as they can, if they knew we were on the verge of a breakthrough innovation they might focus their efforts on us in particular, but with prophecy broken they won't see it coming.  Same with diseases, it's not like Urgathoa is holding a bunch of tricks back.  Aroden, when he was mortal, personally helped to spread a lot of innovations in technology and magic and philosophy.  I think he eventually decided more divine backing was worth not being around personally as an Archmage and that is why he ascended, but it's not like humanity was helpless before he ascended and I believe we can carry on even after his death especially since his death took prophecy with it."

Her voice gets more firm and confident as she speaks.

"But if you are trying to plan in advance to counter any Evil Gods before they know what you are planning it makes sense to ask the sort of questions you are asking.  I know Lastwall has some experts on the right topics, and Heaven might have some Angels or Archons even more specialized it can afford to have aid you.  Was that a specialty of the Archon you had with you?"

That's honestly surprising! Changing spell prices looks like the most obvious lever the gods have - well, they could also give the spells to fewer people, but 'wizards' get some kind of access that's not individually licensed. Maybe they prefer direct action. Maybe the secular improvements in technology are backed by some alliance of gods that prevents other gods from interfering.

It can't be the case that things happen which all the gods, broadly speaking, are opposed to. And while it might be true that the god of disease is already investing all the resources they ever will into spreading disease, they can surely adjust to use those resources differently - spread a different strain this year, resistant to the new antibiotics, it costs them the same because they were going to spread some strain anyway... probably? 

Anyway, whether Tanya manages to cure disease (in a very specific hypothetical) is secondary to whether she'd be paid for doing it or at least trying (in the currency of not being tortured) and also whether anyone, god or mortal, would try to kill her because of it. That's probably best discussed in the context of specific plans, not in general. Obviously in general gods sometimes intervene in things.

"Jon is not to my knowledge a specialist in disease - to be clear, neither am I, it was just a relevant example - but he might well be one on the general topic of divine acts. I'll ask him later, of course, I merely didn't want to waste any time I still had with you."

What else should she ask Sorcha about. 'I was judged Evil and promised eternal torture, I don't know why exactly, and I'm looking for a quick solution because I'm also cursed' ought to be very easy to sympathize with as a problem but it definitely won't make her look good if she says it like that, because religion.

"Some evil gods promote disease or 'monsters', purely harmful things that could wipe out humanity if taken to the extreme, and when you speak of them as being against 'us' it's easy enough to extend 'us' to all humankind. ...apologies, to all thinking species. But other evil gods or their churches rule countries - like Cheliax, and I think others were mentioned - just as Iomedae's backs Lastwall, which looks more symmetrical or at least more complex than 'us against them'. To what extent is it 'good against evil' vs 'everyone against disease'... or the demons of the Worldwound, I suppose? Would Cheliax promote a cure to disease or better farming methods or any other kind of technology?" You'd think everyone (or at least everyone who rules a human nation) would uncomplicatedly want to cure disease, but maybe they're allied with the divine disease faction or something.

"Undead can't catch disease.  Urgathoa kind of indirectly has a nation under her dominion, Geb, of which the living population is used as slaves and food and raw material for the creation of undead, with more powerful undead like liches and vampires* ruling over lesser undead like ghouls and using mindless undead like skeletons and zombies as slaves." 

She pulls out a different Atlas and points at an area on another continent to the south of them.  "Geb."

"Cheliax would want better farming method and cures to diseases.  I'm unsure if Asmodeus would prefer having them if it means everyone has them and he doesn't have a relative advantage.  He probably wouldn't want anyone to have them if it would mean Cheliax getting them last and getting too far behind or relatively disadvantaged.  Asmodeus isn't exactly allied with Urgathoa or other Neutral Evil Gods, but he is relatively more willing to deal with them than the Good Gods.  The Demon Lords are too Chaotic for anyone, Good or Evil, to cut any kind of deal with them beyond very temporary ones."

She should clarify.

"This isn't really my area of expertise.  We need to anticipate how the Gods may react or respond when we do diplomacy but normally we would get a theologian on the team to produce reports and analyses on it instead of me speculating myself.  I mean before when I was regularly working, I'm mostly retired now."

*She can find a word for that one in this language, too bad for Sarusan!

So the 'undead' faction is still around and has divine backers and its own country, which enslaves everyone else to serve them (and eats them, unless that's propaganda, and occasionally promotes the 'raw material'? what odd wording)... And they make themselves immune to disease while infecting everyone else? That's - well, presumably very effective germ warfare, but why haven't the other factions copied the immunity? Tanya is getting tired of sweeping everything under the rug of 'it is so because the gods will in'.

There's a lot of terms that don't translate but 'vampire' does. It's presumably going for the 'bloodsucker' association not 'revenant', and it makes sense in a world where people routinely call their enemies demons and monsters. It would be out of place in the Earth cultures she knows to so consistently refer to enemy groups using standardized insults, but honestly it's odd there aren't many more cultural surprises like that. And 'skeletons' is just bizarre as an insult. Also, why did she call the non-'undead' living? Tanya is clearly missing a lot of details here, but she doesn't have time to dwell on any of this.

If there's a whole nation focused on spreading disease in the rest of the world antibiotics probably wouldn't be a great success story on Golarion, or at least not for long. Better to focus elsewhere. (It's not as if she has a vial of penicillin in her backpack; Earth-2 hasn't gotten around to discovering it yet!) Sorcha confirmed that diplomats have to routinely consult experts on how gods will react to mortal actions because the gods do react sometimes; whatever Tanya was confused about before, she got that part right. (Tragically, unlike the Roman haruspices, these experts may be on to something...)

Sorcha leaves Tanya to her thoughts and tries to clear her own.  Sorcha has guessed Tanya has a lot of very valuable information and so she will probably need the longer debrief.

Jon is back!  He addresses Tanya in Germanian, and then repeats himself for the Paladin's benefit.

"Lastwall will be ready to teleport you in an hour.  They are bringing some additional people that need the time to get ready and gather together."

Oh good, Jon is back when did that become good? Tanya is probably just relieved to see a familiar face and to hear an update. Not that she could tell him apart from any other floating miniature robe full of shadowy darkness.

"We were talking about the extent to which various gods might oppose us if we try to improve, for example, non-magical medicine or agricultural yields or other industries - these are just examples. In addition to their followers doing so for their own reasons. Other than that - Jon, do you have suggestions for what I should focus on learning or on conveying if I have only hours to work with?"

"I think you may still not be oriented on what typical wizard and cleric magic can do across various circles?  Maybe Sorcha could leave for this conversation if I need to contextualize it more for you.  There is more geopolitics, I am unsure how far Sorcha got while I was gone?  And I think there are still some misunderstandings about theology and the Gods, but those seem like unpleasant topics for you and we've gotten the basics covered I think?  So maybe a general summary of most notable magic across the various circles of power?"

"I think we've covered the basics on geopolitics for this continent?  There is always more detail but I agree a very general idea of what spellcasters can do at higher circles is important... maybe supplment that with a loose summary of how many spellcasters of each circle each nation has... I mentioned it when I was going through the political atlas, you can refer back to it as you cover the circles in more detail.  And please don't mind asking me to step away if needed or even just the more cautious option."

So Sarusan has some weird ritual magic like Tian Xia maybe?  

Tanya isn't going to avoid discussing topics because they're unpleasant, she is a professional! ...no, sorry, that's a face-saving wording, carry on.

"A summary of magic is undoubtedly useful to know but I don't expect to be able to memorize it that quickly or to - understand how this affects the world and adapt my mental models accordingly. Even just the combat-relevant magic was too much information to absorb quickly."

(Obviously only a minority of magic would be directly combat-relevant, as with any class of technology. Even combat maniacs egged on by the gods have limits, surely. Teleports revolutionize tactics but they equally revolutionize everything else! Even if Tesla guns worked they'd still be far less important than Tesla's power grid! These are not explicit thoughts; they're bedrock assumptions that Tanya doesn't consciously question.)

"My immediate goals are very simple. Cure or at least stabilize the curse, so I don't die. Avoid torture if I do die. After these are firmly secured I expect I will still be happy to keep working and sharing knowledge with you, although I don't yet know enough to say what other goals I might aspire to in a year's time." Tanya might come to realize she'd much rather work for someone else, but she will always be happy to have been saved from death followed by torture.

"If I don't have years or even months to learn things, to make detailed plans and gather resources, then I should defer to experts I can trust - you and your allies - and focus on providing you with information that would help you accomplish them, rather than the other way around." Honestly, it's a big relief to come to that conclusion. "That includes information on how I can best pay you or serve any of your interests that don't contradict mine. I expect Terendelev herself won't be able to dedicate enough of her time to this, Jon might have other commitments or his time might be too expensive, and Consular Sorcha might not have all the relevant expertise or might not want to be fully read in on the project to minimize direct risk to herself. - these risks are still uncertain. At some point you should consider who to read in on this longer-term, who would be best suited to making use of my knowledge or abilities and might participate in longer term projects. ...of course, if we have relatively short-term prospects like securing Morgethai's help with the curse, you might not want to make any such commitments yet, but you should still use the time to prepare for them and, I hope, become convinced of the value I can offer in order to advance me more loans if I end up needing them."

"Consular Sorcha, I have no objection to sharing my story with you in particular," if only because Tanya has no great ability to judge between her and any other candidates her new prospective employers might propose, "but it is likely to take the whole hour and so only makes sense if you expect or plan to continue working on whatever projects arise from this. I expect diplomatic expertise will probably be valuable, but I don't know that it will be valuable soon except in your capacity as tutor, or that it would be needed enough to take up your full time. ...and it seems I won't be able to stay in Lastwall as I had hoped, at least not until the curse is fixed."

That's all sensible... except one point is very worrying?

"Torture?  Is the curse also maledicting you?  Or do you know yourself to read Evil?  I would assume the Archon here already mentioned Atonement?  Uh..." maybe the translation isn't getting that right "As in the spell, not just the mundane process."

He think Tanya will really hate the idea, but maybe she wants to weigh it as an option anyway.

"I am told I am currently judged as 'evil'," Tanya says with clear distaste. "I don't know how one atones via spell." This is generating all sorts of wild hypotheses but Tanya is going to firmly hold off on those and hear Sorcha out first.

"The spell basically accelerate and gets divine confirmation of the natural process of atonement.  You know, sincere repentance, genuine desire to change your behavior or pattern of behavior or to have done something differently.  It changes how your alignment reads to closer match that of the God and is considered very strong evidence in Pharasma's court that the repentance is genuine.  Normally it requires an extended period of acting differently for the alignment one reads as to change although I think a genuine change of heart can be used as a point in Pharasma's court even without the spell.  For the spell to work, it requires a particular mental state.  Iomedae in particular requires a different policy of action that would have resulted in not having done the major Evil action but doesn't require a particularly humble or contrite attitude.  I think Sarenrae looks for the repentant attitude more and doesn't so much look for a personal policy?  You would want an expert assessment on what God would work best for you if you are borderline and can meet some of these criteria better than others."

"That is basically correct.  It requires a 5th circle cleric spell and a large amount of incense which would be a small fortune for most people but a trivial amount compared to what Terendelev has promised you.  As Sorcha indicated, even without the spell a change of heart or mindset can be a very significant element in Pharasma's court, even if the subject dies before they can act on the change of heart, but the spell acts a God's confirmation of such a change of heart and without such confirmation it is otherwise very arguable.  And, as you may have surmised, it involves a God very closely looking at your mind to gauge you intentions and attitudes, especially now that prophecy no longer works and they cannot look at your future range of possible actions.  It does not, however, involve your mind being altered with magic, any change of mindset is merely that of a very intense conversation and self-reflection.  You could atone specifically to Lawful Neutral instead of Lawful Good, with a subsequently lower threshold of a change of mind or heart required.  And to emphasize, the translation is incorrectly implying atonement is towards Good, it is actually towards the alignment of the God.  A Chaotic Evil person could theoretically atone to Lawful Evil via an Asmodean cleric casting the spell.  Or a Chaotic Good God's cleric could allow you to atone to True Neutral."

"Putting aside that I don't know what, specifically, I have been judged for or what alternative conduct would have been acceptable to Pharasma. Supposing I known at the time that acting as I did would predictably have these results, I would have probably chosen not to damn myself. Is it enough to agree not to do things Pharasma calls evil, for the principal reason that she will torture me if I do them, and without feeling any moral conviction that she is right about it? And how does one go about learning the will of Pharasma well enough to commit to that?" Tanya was raised by Catholic nuns who believed that (ugh, it all comes back to her now) imperfect contrition was enough for salvation, but she is aware that some people disagree. If it's just a game of following instructions and incentives she can play it with the best but that's what got her here in the first place.

A god's going to read her mind very closely to verify obedience? Of course she hates the idea of that violation! But the gods can and presumably do that whenever they feel like it, they might be doing it right now, Pharasma will do it if Tanya dies, Being X (himself an imitator, servant or alias of Pharasma) did it when they met, she might as well have them do it in her favor. While hating them and everything they stand for, if she can get away with it.

"To be clear, the most concrete previous offer I heard was 'spend decades killing dangerous megafauna to balance the scales' and presumably that is not less expensive than a one-time spell. So I'm curious about the rate of success of this process, and how well these momentary conversions actually predict future behavior. ...unless the local custom is to use mind-control or mind-editing spells to achieve the required mental state, that would explain a high rate of success. ...if there's no downside to trying and failing, I should presumably try anyway. Without mental editing, that is."

"That attitude is almost certainly enough to atone to Lawful Neutral, I think it probably won't meet the standards for Lawful Good but it might depend on exact internal mental factors I can't assess accurately and your exact circumstances that I don't know yet.  You could aim for Lawful Good anyway and it may simply be that you only get to Lawful Neutral depending on the God's assessment.  If you have the chance to shop around for clerics of different Gods that can cast the spell it might be worth considering various Gods' theologies... Irori, a Lawful Neutral God, for example, really values mortal self determination and self reliance and probably would not be happy about a mortal committing themselves to simple obedience to a God's judgements.  Abadar, also Lawful Neutral, but on the other hand, has pragmatic economics sort of approach to things.  Iomedae, likewise, is pragmatic.  Also, to clarify, Pharasma doesn't view herself as trying to enforce her will or incentivize mortal actions, she views sorting mortals as an end unto itself."

She has additional clarifications!

"The amount of incense is set for the spell and doesn't vary with the actions the person has taken or what they would have to do to balance things out without the spell.  I don't know how strong of an adventurer you are, but decades of your periodic aid against monsters would likely be worth more money if you are even just moderately strong as an adventurer.  Lastwall has experts at helping people figure out if the spell will work for them before anyone actually casts it.  I don't think mind editing magic would work, enchantment spells aren't detailed or long duration enough for that.  I guess you could use geases to enforce behavior on yourself?  By the very nature of the accuracy a God's assessment, successful Atonements do predict long term changes in actions and behavior."

You just said that the gods' assessment was inaccurate without prophecy! It merely 'constituted strong evidence', it wasn't dispositive! Tanya isn't going to rely on some half-assed probabilistic assumption to save her! But also, defense in depth and all that; not relying on it doesn't mean not trying it.

"What time frame does this require? Days, weeks, months? How would I go about preparing for this, checking the likelihood of success ahead of time, figuring out what to do to increase it - do I need to get a, a confessor -" Tanya will jump through hoops that are on fire to avoid eternal torture, she will spill all her secrets to strangers who will judge her unworthy, she will bow to the incentives dictated by evil gods Beings, as long as she is allowed to absolutely loathe everyone involved every step of the way and to do so very visibly since reading her mind is involved.

She will not worship them or think that they are praiseworthy rather than brutes, but following orders under threat in a system where everyone is subject to the same rules? That, she can force herself to do.

"The spell itself takes an hour to cast.  If there are uncertainties or discussion needed before casting it, that might be another hour preparation beforehand, maybe a few hours for an especially complicated case.  If complications about your background factor in, maybe allow for another hour or a few for that?  If there is some evidence you need about Iomedae or whatever other God you plan to get an Atonement from, or soul-searching you need to do in preparation before talking to a confessor, I don't know how long that will take.  Lastwall has confessors sworn to confidentiality, it will just be yourself and a confessor and Iomedae herself that will learn the details you chose to disclose in that conversation."