"I don't know why Pharasma judges me as evil. Not in any specifics, and I might be wrong about the general principles as well. I certainly don't know what I was supposed to do instead in any given situation! What am I supposed to do with a confessor in just a few hours other than give him my own guesses? I already did what I thought was best and what society prescribed! Maybe Pharasma should let me read her mind if she wants me to miraculously divine her rules with a few hours of reflection!"

The Archon has already corrected her about Pharasma not having coherent rules and not actually trying to enforce them per se.

"Then you should plan for a longer duration so you can discuss your actions in more detail.  Maybe make it an entire day to be sure.  Lastwall has competent confessors that aren't capable of casting the atonement spell, so you wouldn't even be taking up a critical persons time doing the preparation.  We actually have some capable of casting it from a scroll.  If you're going back to Mendev..." she doesn't want to insult Mendev but she also really doesn't want to take any chances... "...we could send someone with you.  Uh-" she looks to the Archon, "-are they planning on a bag for the teleport?"

"Yes, so we can add a person without too hard of a tradeoff.  Tanya, would you prefer Sorcha or I arrange for a confessor to come with you?  The other person can stay here to keep answering your questions."

She needs to explain her entire life - her two lives - in detail to an alien from another world, so she should plan on taking an entire day to make sure she covers absolutely everything that could be relevant?!

"...I really think you're underestimating the time required. I do not expect that I could even fully describe or explain the place I come from, in every detail that might matter, in a single day. Because I don't know what might turn out to be relevant! That is almost the entire problem here! If I could learn the rules fully I could apply them myself, but if there aren't any - any short, simple, consistent, legible rules to follow to be sure you're not evil, as sure as that you're not a murderer - the whole problem here is that I don't know what Pharasma thinks and I don't want to rely on guessing."

"If Pharasma thought war was always evil, that would be an easy rule to follow. Stupid, but easy. If I knew the price of war was eternal torture, I would never have fought in one. But I see you good people do fight wars - against the demons, against Cheliax, in self-defense - if whatever I did that was evil was in the course of my army service, and I'm not entirely sure that all of it was, that is still four years of military service to go over, full of many operations and plans and decisions as both a field and a staff officers, all of it conducted with completely different magic and technology and laws and basic assumptions than your confessor will have ever heard about - you cannot expect anyone to review that in a day! If my own army wanted to thoroughly review my service record looking for - war crimes, or something - it could take their experts weeks!"

“I suppose I might be underestimating the gap in cultural context?”

Her immediate judgmental response is that she thinks Tanya does have some idea of where to start and is getting defensive because she doesn’t want to discuss it, but Sorcha is absolutely not saying that out loud or even showing a hint of it on her face.

“I think figuring out the most plausible major incidents of Evil, if there were just a few, should be doable in a few hours?  If you particularly need to rush because of the curse and don’t mind the risk of the cost of wasting the scroll you could try just off of that.  Anyway, should I or Jon go see about arranging for a confessor to come with you?”

"...you're right, if we can always try again later then there's no downside to trying after a hurried preparation. I suppose we'll see what the confessor thinks. I would prefer that you go, I would like to ask Jon more about this - atonement spell." 

"I'll get on that then."  She walks off.

"Her summary was basically correct, but I imagine across the gap in context there may be more explanation you need?"

"I remain confused about the question I already asked. To resolve not to act in ways that Pharasma judges as evil, I need to learn her rules and judgements. If I am to point out specific things I have done that do not align with that, likewise. On Earth - either Earth - people study theology and moral philosophy for many years. ...well, some people do. How is it possible to do it in a day? Everyone here may already understand it, but is it really simple enough to be taught in a day and a night? Some religious traditions on Earth say that it is, but I am - suspicious."

"If it were only going forward, I could perhaps resolve to defer to local experts in all decisions in certain areas, until such time as I learned to apply the rules for myself. I am, if I do say so myself, quite good at following laws and orders, and at knowing the limits of my own knowledge. If the price is not deciding the course of my life for a year or three, that is a price I can bear."

"But if I must correctly point out what I would have done differently in life if I had been following these new rules, I don't see how I could do that in a few days, or how anyone could learn enough about both Earths to help me. ...I may be wrong about that if some local species have greatly superior mental abilities compared to humans. But given what I know, it appears a ridiculous proposition."

"Besides all that, I probably do not understand the incentives created by the existence of this spell, what the gods achieve and what social equilibrium is created, but that is not decision relevant."

The obvious first-order effect - not of repentance being accepted, of it costing money - is the rich and powerful will commit more evil (or 'evil') than the poor and desperate. On Earth this was motivated by the money being given to the church, which was incentivezed to sell redemption whether imagined or real; but here it goes towards an expensive burned offering, so - cui bono?

Well... that certainly is a Lawful way of looking at morality.

"Most humans find the Good-Evil axis mostly intuitive, usually with a few blind-spots or second order effects they fail to consider?  For example, most humans will agree it is Good to treat people with kindness and respect and empathy, but will make exceptions, sometimes without even realizing they are doing it.  For example, being cruel to slaves, or people of a lower class, or captured enemy soldiers, or people from an opposing nation.  Warfare does put people in situations were it can be difficult to actually minimize cruelty and collateral harm, and many societies normalize or even promote maximizing cruelty and collateral harm during war.  Lastwall has a concept of illegal orders and adheres to rules of war that are sufficient from keeping their soldiers from counting as Evil if they follow them.  It is true the cultural gap, magical difference, and technological difference will make translating their rules of war to your past context harder, but I don't think it is impossible.  For a nonwarfare example... an Abadaran providing insurance to ships without care for how their clients are might find themselves Lawful Evil if it turns out many of their clients are slavers transporting slaves and that Abadaran isn't involved in any charitable causes that would help shift their alignment back to Lawful Neutral."

"As to your other question, some divine spells do have substantial room for optimization, but are held back by divine treaties.  For spells affecting afterlife, the treaties and agreements are very ancient and entrenched.  This is one of the areas the Good and Neutral Gods have a major disadvantage in.  And, since Atonement needs to interface with Pharasma's system and be accepted by her courts, there isn't much prospect for a wizard to invent a non-divine version of the spell not restricted by such treaties, even if a wizard figures out an appropriate magical effect for changing alignment, Pharasma's courts would probably not accept it.  So the overall answer is that the cost is something the Evil Gods want to impose."

Intuition cannot replace knowledge of the law!!!

"Standards of what counts as 'cruelty' vary enormously even just between societies on Earth, to the point that laws prohibit 'cruel and unusual punishment' because people innovating punishments can make them cruel accidentally. I don't think I have been cruel to anyone except to accomplish a purpose that justified it, but I would not be terribly surprised to be told that I do not understand cruelty the way Pharamsa does. Maybe the army's laws for treatment of prisoners were cruel, according to Pharasma! Maybe I could have avoided it if I had set myself the goal of treating prisoners as well as I was legally allowed to, at the expense of resources that could be used elsewhere in the war effort! Or maybe that would count as cruelty to my own men instead by not prioritizing them - I do not know."

"Or take the insurance example. The world economy is enormously complex. It is absolutely intractable for anyone to check whether their economic activity ends up benefiting some evil. Is a citizen paying taxes liable for everything their government does with them? For everyone the government transacts with, including foreign governments and businesses, since the government is acting on behalf of its citizens? Is it enough to have voted against the current government, if you're even allowed to vote, or do you have to stop earning a taxabale income and go live in a cabin in the woods?"

"You say selling insurance to a captain who transports slaves is evil, even if done unknowingly. It follows that so is selling shoes or nails or bread, all equally neceessary for the running of a ship. Is the baker liable for not checking what other business his customers engage in? Do people go around with certificates of being in good standing - or not being evil, or detectably evil - if they did then the insurance salesman would have checked them - it is the government's job to define and enforce what is forbidden! Why is slavery not outlawed?! An economy cannot possibly function if people can't transact without an in-depth background check into their counterparties! A responsible government would make slavery illegal! And cruelty and every other evil! That is obviously, incredibly in the population's interest and it would put the burden of policing where it belongs!!!"

"In the Abadaran's case, it would take a lot of insured slave ships, and some major failure or willful ignorance in realizing what they were enabling for it to eventually make them read Evil.  But yes, I overall agree with your complaints, many government on this planet fail at making Laws sufficient to keep their citizens consistently non-Evil.  My understanding is that mortal governmental leaders often make various excuses about how slavery or allowing their inquisitions to torture people or mass execution of enemy civilians are necessary for their civilization to function.  Lastwall, on the other hand, does succeed at making their Laws such that anyone following them comes out non-Evil and has detailed laws and military regulations you can read."

He wants to get her to realize they are on the same side...

"And I overall agree with you that Pharasma's system is not fairly and reasonably legible.  It in fact doesn't always have clear lines, there are lots of ambiguous areas that always get heavily argued over in the soul trials.  Did I explain the trials?  Each afterlife, except for the Neutral Evil afterlife, can send representatives to the trial, and the Neutral Good afterlife makes sure to send a representative to every single trial, arguing for Good by any and all means possible.  They can generally outperform Chaotic Evil representatives, and slightly outperform Lawful Evil representatives.  The Good afterlives have the advantage that any non-Evil afterlife is a relative win for them, and so the Lawful Neutral and Good afterlives all at least moderately coordinate on the trials.  You shouldn't count on this, but if your case was especially borderline, the odds might be better than your alignment reading suggests."

...

Pharasma runs an adversarial system?! 

You'd think that having the mind and past of the accused laid bare to you, seeing both what they did and the truth of their reformation, would enable you to enforce any rules you saw fit! So of course they had to make it worse than that, they made the rules unclear to the judge herself and then they brought in bloody lawyers! The only travesty worse than that utter perversion of justice (a word supposedly rooted in 'judgement') is that some of the locals undoubtedly worship the gods for doing it!

Which incidentally raises a rather big problem with her plan.

"I need to be very certain, for this plan to work. How much actions, and credible promises of future action, matter compared to thoughts and beliefs. How will Pharasma react when - if she reads my mind at trial and sees that I will not do anything evil again and also loathe her and everything she stands for?"

"If the loathing is because of the cruelty of it and you want to rebel against it, there is strong precedent for counting that as a Chaotic Good attitude!  If your loathing is because of the illogic and inconsistency of her system, there is moderate precedent for counting that as a Lawful Good or Lawful Neutral attitude, depending on how much loathing at the cruelty of it factors into your attitude.  Lawful Evil has tried to claim loathing Pharasma should count as a Lawful Evil, but abusive repressive systems are encouraged by Lawful Evil ideology, so they haven't established any significant precedent about this."

He thinks a moment.  

"...I suppose this is one of the cases where Pharasma not deliberately using her system to actually incentivize anything is in your favor."

"Do keep in mind attitude and intentions only moderately weight how actions and results are counted, so you probably can't get sorted Chaotic Good purely out of loathing for Pharasma."

But what if she loathes her with the fury of a thousand suns presumably people have tried this before and it hasn't worked. Well, as long as it isn't going to get her judged as evil Pharasma is at least ahead of Jesus and Being X on that score.

"What about learning the rules quickly enough? It is admirable that Lastwall's laws are reliable in that regard, but can they really be straightforwardly applied to - alien contexts?" For that matter, can Tanya learn the civil and military law codes of an entirely new country in a single day, no she cannot! She couldn't remotely do that even back on Earth!

“I think some of it will at least provide a useful starting point?   For example, Lastwall has developed policies on the use of wide area-of-effect destructive magics on areas that have mixes of military targets and civilians.  Your magic is more destructive and you have vastly more of it than a typical Golarion caster would, but you could at least try to extrapolate with the help of a confessor.”

“But yes, the timetable your curse might impose if returning to Kenabres doesn’t fix it is quite a problem.”

Well, either it will work or it won't, if the locals thing it's not outrageously implausible then Tanya will give it her best shot.

"If it's the best available avenue then I will try. The downside risk is probably mostly the opportunity cost. Is there any other short term plan that could be tried?"

He thinks carefully.

“The Good Gods have mostly given up all options to completely bypass Pharasma’s system, but that’s only mostly.  Some of the minor Good Gods held out or otherwise refused to cooperate sufficiently that they might be able to help you to entirely bypass her system.  Heaven doesn’t have that option, but maybe some Chaotic Good demigod from Elysium would be able to?  I am not sure, maybe Morgethai or some other powerful Chaotic Good wizard or cleric might have a lead?”

"Then by all means we should ask them. ...I suppose it's very rare that someone needs to clear their evil status and is facing imminent death for unrelated reasons and comes from such a foreign background that it's not clear what they should commit to do differently in the future for the 'atonement' spell to work."

"I think defectors from Cheliax often have a warped notion of what counts as Good and Evil, but Lastwall and other Good organizations have been able to figure out generally applicable approaches.  Criminals to be executed usually can't afford an Atonement spell, but as I've mentioned the internal mental process is still somewhat useful in Pharasma's court even without the spell, so it is traditional in most non-Evil countries to give condemned criminals access to a confessor or at least some kind of cleric, ideally of a non-Evil God of their choosing, and a day or so, ideally a few days, to contemplate before their execution.  They would lack such a foreign background as yours and a few days is longer than the very worst case scenario with your curse... …and I supposed the context of a criminal conviction provides some indication of what they have to atone of."

This probably isn't helping Tanya to feel better, but from what he understands of her, she wants accuracy over comfort.

Wonderful! They're going to send her to be shriven by a confessor specialized in working with heretics and the condemned! What could possibly go wrong?!

Worse, if it doesn't work they might conclude it's her fault and that she's really evil after all, or that she's incapable of committing to follow the law!

None of this is useful to say. ...and now she is obviously going to have to work through the night. She wonders if they have coffee as well as chickens it's going to be more mind-affecting spells, isn't it.

He leaves Tanya to her thoughts and thinks some himself.  Reviewing her responses and his descriptions... he isn't completely sure, but it seems like she keeps assuming Pharasma is trying to incentivize Good over Evil, despite his repeated mentions otherwise?  And maybe she also incorrectly assumes the Good Gods are in a lot closer cooperation with Pharasma than they actually are?

He reviews his own feelings.  He realizes he is kind of disappointed in how quickly she decided to just obediently follow whatever rules Pharasma set.  Hopefully that attitude can at least get her Lawful Neutral... but Jon was kind of hoping for something else?  Maybe it was his incorrect model of her as an Evil Arodenite had made him hope she was more defiant or self-determined?

He thinks about what to explain next.  An explanation of magic would probably be helpful, but he has already indicated that, so he'll let Tanya decide what to follow up on.

"...if we can't think of anything more urgent then perhaps we should start working on my," ugh but she has literal training in this including the crucial part of keeping her emotions to herself, "confession. How do I start? By reading some brief guide or set of rules, or trying to think of the - things I've done which are against a particular rule you'll give me to start with, or something else?"

"Familiarity with rules would help especially if you are going for Lawful Neutral.  I can go request some Lastwall handbooks if that is were you would like to start?  For other starting points... the exact questions confessor may start with vary by culture... I could present some example starting questions?"

"Whatever you think is best; I am really in no position to think I know better." If Tanya believes hard enough that 'good' can be achieved and 'evil' avoided by following rules and the logic of self-interested rationality, perhaps it will come true for her? As long as there's none of that 'to be good is to love God' nonsense.