"I, personally, would in that situation let them kill me rather than try to kill them first. It is not a general commandment of Good, it's a choice I have made for how to approach people - I am, as a single and specifically Shelynite individual, more worried that I might if I chose differently mistake someone as more dangerous than they were, or lose the chance to say something that might change their mind and save us both. But many, probably most, Good people would defend themselves; you can do Good to defend innocent victims from attack even if the innocent victims include you.

"Abadar hates offensive war. The Abadarans can and will be disposed to warn you, if they think something you propose will advance it by more than it advances things of value to others. And Goodness is not out of reach for people who cannot think through every possible implication on their own. You are allowed to take and rely on advice from sources that you have good reason to think are not leading you astray. You are allowed to presume that strangers you have no information about are good to help even if you know they are mortals and not angels. I... am not sure how much I should recommend you truck with Abadarans, because more than any other faith I think they are trying to do the thing you are prone to where you attempt to define Good as a particularly clever special case of Law. But on war specifically Abadar is, in some ways, stricter even than Shelyn.

"The thing I recommend for cases like your taxes going to causes you cannot support is prayer. Sometimes prayer in public as a form of protest - we do some of that together here. But even in private, if you turn out to have a perfect or just very good avenue by which you can solve the problem, and withdraw your support or obviate the war or sway the ruler, you won't notice if you don't think about it, and one of the best ways to think about a thing like that is to try to describe what you can see of the situation to a god who wants the things you do. Most of the time, the god you choose to pray to will not answer, especially not in words, but few people are as clever and creative when they are just thinking, as when they are aiming those thoughts to explain themselves to someone wiser and farther-seeing than themselves."

Tanya wouldn't defend herself if she might be sent to hell over it! But she can't afford to die yet, not until she stops counting as evil.

And Tanya also hates offensive war! She probably hates it more than Abadar does! How long did Abadar spend in the trenches? Without offensive war, there would be no war at all! 

"I was specifically recommended the Abadarans for advice on making money. Without harming anyone in the process, of course. And the idea of doing good by donating money, or paying others to let them do good... appeals to me. It's efficient, it causes more good to be done, though maybe Pharasma doesn't care about that. But all my ideas - for introducing new technologies or magic from my homeland - are very... broad. If any one of them succeeds, it might cause very large changes in the world. I don't think anyone can predict if large changes like that will ultimately be for the best or not. Sometimes it isn't clear even in retrospect if it was worth it. Do you think I should refrain? From doing anything that might have large effects that might be net harmful, if I honestly cannot predict which way they'll go?"

"And - if I can't do that - the one thing I'm personally good at is killing. Unfortunately. I could kill monsters - nonsapients only, who are threatening people - I don't know how easy it would be to find or vet opportunities, or how much money I could make living like that. Do you think it's - something that might create enough good, to justify risking my life to do it, compared to anything else I could do?" Tanya will have to make a rational cost/benefit calculation here. It will be hard, to make herself risk death knowing what's on the line, but - she has the training to do it. She can do it. If she has to.

What else. "I don't know if I'm doing repentance right. I regret doing - everything that was probably involved in sending me to hell. And other people. Do I need to regret things more specifically than that, or something? How do I do that? How can I tell if I'm doing it right?"

"Public prayer as a form of protest makes sense. I'm familiar with the concept of private prayer as a form of meditation, and I can try the - thought exercise you described when I'm planning something. But I don't believe in - I don't know about - any god" worth praying to remember who you are talking to!!!

Um. "...any god who wants all the same things I do. I mean no offense to Shelyn, I honestly know almost anything about her. I spoke to a Shelynite for the first time in my life yesterday. Shelyn presumably doesn't want me to go to hell. Is that - good enough reason to pray to her? Am I supposed to be praying for," she stumbles again, "for help, or just as a way to - order my thoughts? I don't know that I'm any good at any of the other things Shelyn wants." Tanya doesn't fancy her chances of making art beautiful enough to please Shelyn.

Obviously there's no god of 'make Tanya, specifically, happy' because why would there be. (There is however a god of making Tanya specifically unhappy! for unclear reasons!!) There might be a benevolent god who wants good things for everyone but is powerless to achieve that goal - or is already doing all she can - praying to her probably makes perfect sense to someone raised in the tradition, that's how traditions work. As long as Tanya doesn't have to thank and praise a god for not sending her to hell, she can probably make it work with enough effort.

"Donating money works. It works better if you care about what specific outcomes you are supporting with your money; to the extent you're doing good mostly by coincidence it takes more to go as far in your personal alignment. ...if your ideas for new things to introduce are so earthshaking as all that it's possible you want a Commune, probably from Abadar who will see most clearly about something like that, before going ahead. I don't know if the Abadarans have a Commune-capable priest in this city but they can ask their colleagues in Oppara. Abadar is not Good but between favoring prosperity and hating offensive war I think you will not do Evil following his call here.

"I have never been an adventurer and I'm not sure how much harder it is to make a career of it while refusing to kill sapients, which now that I think of it is a serious omission in my knowledge and with your permission I would like to write to some better-traveled Songbirds about it. Adventuring in general is dangerous, but fighting enemies who can't make plans might be less so as you'd meet them only in the field and not in moments of downtime that they choose... But you're very young. You could learn to be good at something else, Tanya, it doesn't have to be inventing or killing.

"Repentance is different for everyone. If you come on Sunday we do a Detect Evil for everyone who wants to hear it and you might already have saved yourself, or you might not; I can't read your mind and even if I could my guess would not be perfect.

"A lot of people pray for help, but I was recommending it as a way to order your thoughts. Shelyn doesn't want you to go to Hell; no Good god ever would want that for anyone with a better path available.

"Shelyn wants - good lives. We say 'love and art', but as with so many things that's a glib summary of something more tremendous and beautiful. If you want to be a Shelynite, your task is to surround yourself with people you can care for who care for you. I take it you don't have a family here, but you can build one, you can make friends, you can weave yourself into a community and learn how to help them by knowing them and give them the chance to help you by knowing you. And some of that help may be dramatic defenses and transfers of money and inventions that change the world. Shelyn is not opposed. But the bulk of a person's life, if they have a good life, the kind suffering people yearn to escape into - is spent on pedestrian things like picking flowers for someone who's been having a hard time to cheer them up, or putting a little extra work into choosing and tailoring a dress for a child in your life so everyone who sees her will know she is loved, or singing with people on the same path as yourself so none of you feel alone on it, or re-telling your favorite story so you can be more connected to those who hear it and see the same things in it that you do."

Tanya takes a few moments to digest this.

None of the examples are things she'd done before. Cuoco is right that she can learn, how to - arrange flowers or sew dresses. Maybe she can learn to sing? She's never tried.

She can try to learn how to tell what some (particular) people want or need. She feels terribly insecure about this, which is irrelevant, and she feels... convinced she will be bad at it, which isn't. 

"I don't think those things... play to my strengths. Frankly, I think I'm very bad at caring for people. Emotionally, that is. I can take on obligations and fulfill them. I can be polite, and nice, and kind when I understand what that entails. But I don't think that's the same thing." You should want Tanya as an employee, an ally, an associate, maybe a social acquaintance. You shouldn't want her as your friend or family member. She'll be bad at those things and you should pick someone else. Everyone has their niche in life, and 'loving wife and mother' isn't hers.

"I acknowledge that I might be wrong. In a sense, it's arrogant to tell an expert I can't learn to do something when I haven't even tried learning because I'm so convinced I'll fail. If it's my best chance, of course I'll try and do my best." But you should not assign Tanya to do it. She can do her part by donating to the friends and family charity and protecting them from monsters and building them radio sets.

"...you of course have my permission to ask others about adventuring without killing people. Without fighting people, if possible. And anything else you'd like to share from our conversation which won't be traced back to me, or which is public like my intention not to kill people as an 'adventurer'. I had already decided on that, before I talked to you."

"I'm not sure I understand about the donations. If I care about doing good in general" (because it gets her out of hell) "do I need to also strongly care about the specific cause I'm supporting? Is it less good to - try to estimate if an orphanage or a soup kitchen helps more people, and donate to that, without caring about orphans more than hungry people?" It would be even better if Tanya could pay people to figure out for her what cause to support, but she's not sure if that counts as a good use of money. She'll at least have to read the arguments and agree with the conclusions, rather than just trusting experts, if she's to care about specific causes.

Cuoco makes a note on a bit of paper and sets it aside; Tanya can see it if she wants and it says "write friends re: adventuring without fighting intelligent foes".

"Not everyone has to be a Shelynite. The Good gods are friends, the Good churches are friends - if you'd be better suited to another sort of life than the one where you cultivate close personal relationships and seek to beautify the world around you there is nothing necessarily wrong with that, I am just less qualified to advise on it.

"I recommend finding a cause you can care about if possible. The coin is the same whether it comes from a devoted purse or an indifferent one, but there are still ways it can matter - if you feel passionately about the plight of orphans, you will be more likely to notice if something is the matter with how money is being spent on them, if they're getting shoes that don't keep the cold out or if someone charged with their care is maltreating them. You will put yourself in more situations where it might come up that you could hire an orphan about to grow out of the shelter for your invention business, or vouch for a good worker whose other references are lacking who would make a good orphanage matron, or suggest if a businessman owes you money and comes up short he can pay the orphanage, in sheets and blankets, rather than you, in silver. But if it would work better for you to pay half again as much - or twice as much, or three times, we don't have precise numbers - rather than invest attention, you can pay extra to skip the part where you care."

That's a relief. She just needs to ensure the cause she funds is well-managed; she can delegate the actual management to qualified professionals. (Also, this is getting ahead of herself a bit. She doesn't have any money to donate yet!)

"That makes sense. I hope I'll be in a position where I can do that."

"Is there - I mean no offense, I'm afraid I'm not at all familiar with the local culture. Is there some sort of catalog of all the Good churches, or recommended reading material? If I'm going to talk to more of them, I should at the very least come more prepared so I don't waste their time. I'm already spending time in the public library that the Nethysians very kindly run. ...I know there's a church of Iomedae in the city, I don't know much about them either. I haven't been there yet, I was - worried that they might... react badly, since they have paladins who can detect evil at will." And the job description of 'fighting evil'. "I don't know what other Good churches there are."

"I can tell you about all the Good churches that operate in this city. I can't tell you about all the ones across the world because a lot of gods are popular in some places and not others, and some demigods and empyreal lords and suchlike are very local indeed to the point that I may have never heard their names. Paladins don't just... I'm not sure what you are expecting a paladin to do upon noticing that you're Evil."

"I know they can't attack me but they might... go around making sure other people know I'm evil and don't associate with me? Try to check what I'm doing and warn anyone I work with?" Pay someone to tail me in the street with a sign and a megaphone? "I don't know what's legal for them to do. Or if they have bigger problems and would just ignore me, which is - reasonable. Can you tell me more about the Iomedaens? I've heard stories about Iomedae before she became a god but that doesn't tell me what they're like now. They... focus on fighting?"

"Iomedae - whose holy book is an excellent work of poetry, if you like that sort of thing, and will be more comprehensive about the underlying approach than my summary - is the goddess of defeating evil. Redeeming the Evil counts, and is preferable when possible, and comes up more often in a home-front situation like this city, but their specialty as a church compared to ours is more the kind of evil one aims to defeat by fighting, demons and the undead and Hell and so on. You are not acting like the kind of evil that one defeats by fighting at all. A paladin who Detected you and was on guard for some threat you might represent might keep an eye on you - any wizard can look like a young girl - but not because the thing you seem to me to actually be is their principal concern there; it'd be possible to sort out if one became unpleasantly overbearing about it. In addition to being more martial, more Lawful, and far likelier than we are to swear themselves to celibacy, they're more fixated on - efficiency, to the point where I would not expect it to be easy to get one to sit down with you like this. They have, and need, a rule for their empowered that they must set aside time to have fun once a month, because Iomedae selects the sort of person who will otherwise run themselves into the ground working on something that seems more important than that."

A celibate martial religious order that attracts workaholics who must be reminded to have fun once a month? That sounds - unpleasant. It's not an exact personality type Tanya's familiar with, she missed the Germanian religious military orders by a century or two, but she can definitely imagine it.

"The mission of defeating evil is a fine one but if they do it by fighting and killing people then - I'd rather not." And also presumably they wouldn't want her to join them. "I've also heard about Erastil, god of farming and the countryside, and based on that description he doesn't seem very relevant to me either. Is there any other church you'd recommend I learn more about or talk to?"

"The Iomedaeans maintain a shrine to Milani, goddess of revolution, in one of their churches because both of them were associated with Aroden, but she's Chaotic, probably not for you. Desna, of travel and dreams, is also Chaotic, and so is Cayden Cailean, of adventurers and drink; of the two she's less martial, I don't actually know Desnans to have any consistent philosophy about how to approach the prospect of fighting beyond that they must have one because they could always be attacked on the road and spend a lot of time on the road. Erastil has a lot to say about living an ordinary life with a farm and a family and the occasional need to take down a wild boar, and much less guidance for exceptional cases. If you travel outside of the Taldan sphere of influence there are Sarenrites; I haven't met any of them in person because of the politics that keep Qadiran influences hedged out of Taldor, but Sarenrae is Neutral Good, and more interested than Shelyn is in killing things in the demons-devils-and-undead category but not as fixated on it as the Iomedaeans. There is a very small one-priest church of Torag in the part of the city where most of the dwarves live; he's mostly a dwarven god, Lawful Good, interested in smithcraft; I mention him mostly for completeness but it could be that he's relevant to something of interest to you. There are Pharasmins, whose principal missions are arranging to prevent and destroy undead and assist in childbirth. Gozreh is the god of nature and probably not relevant to you."

"I... don't really understand undead. I've heard a lot about different kinds, and we encountered a zombie on the way and had to kill it - I was told it's not a person - I guess I don't understand why fighting undead as a category is a focus of several gods. Is it like the demons at the Worldwound, with a clear defensive mission? ...when a good god or church is focused on fighting - demons, devils and so on - is it always defensive?" Or is it more like some people in Taldor apparently wanting to kill most nonhumans? "...I can visit other cities and countries quickly, if you recommend I go to Andoran or whereever to talk to Sarenrites or to someone else I can do that."

Tanya has nothing against travel and dreams, and indeed travel is crucial to commerce and so civilization. She doesn't see why either has to be unlawful chaotic, but she doesn't particularly care about them either, inasfar as she can afford to care about anything other than not going to hell right now. She might have some useful knowledge or bits of modern metal-work or something to show smiths, but she's not one herself. She knows almost nothing about farming, or the kind of family you'd raise on a farm. Revolution is obviously right out.

"I might recommend Osirion to talk to Sarenrites, if you can tolerate Garundi norms about women - Osirion is an Abadaran theocracy but the Sarenrites are well-liked there, so they'll be used to lawful attitudes that don't incorporate the Good very integrally. But I don't have a specific reason to think you need Sarenrae.

"There are sapient and non-sapient undead. Both are dangerous to the living, probably with some exceptions simply because the world is large but consistently enough that it is understood as a fact about undead generally. Both have or are the souls of the deceased, changed to run on negative energy and behave in the manner of their kind of undead; in the sapient ones this may bear some resemblance to how they acted in life, perhaps even a lot of resemblance if how they acted in life was dangerous and Evil to begin with, and in the nonsapient ones it is unrelated. The soul of an undead is in perpetual torment. To release a zombie or a skeleton into full death is a mercy to whoever's body is thus put down, unless you know for absolute certain that they would go to an Evil afterlife and have an especially bad time there, and even if you do know that, zombies are contagious - skeletons admittedly are not and I might fail to report it if someone were keeping the animated skeleton of their known-evil loved one in the basement to protect them from worse. The presence of any undead means there are conditions which give rise to them, which no one wants unless they are themselves the condition in question, so any cropping up is cause for alarm. Pharasmins tend gravesites and manage funerary rites to make sure the dead do not rise on their own and are not easy pickings for necromancers. Most, possibly all, forms of sapient undeath, require - as part of the transformation or to sustain their unlife - the deaths of living people."

"I see why you'd want to prevent more people becoming undead if that requires killing. And prevent - conditions that cause spontaneous undead - do you mean if someone good dies but isn't, uh, buried properly, or a necromancer gets their body, they might still not go to heaven? Through no fault of their own? Why does the judge god permit this?? ...doesn't the soul go to the afterlife as soon as they die?" This is complicated and probably Tanya doesn't need to care because she's not ready to die yet.

"And - you should kill undead to free the soul, after checking if they were made undead nonconsensually and what awaits them in the afterlife, which I'm not qualified to do. Should I err on the side of killing them anyway? The way undead change sounds similar to the ways people change in the afterlives, to become more uniformly and extremely like that alignment. And to suffer in the evil ones, I guess. Should I think of undead as a fourth evil afterlife, except not due to anything the person did in life?"

"I have absolutely no idea why Pharasma permits this - nor Malediction, a spell which sends arbitrary people to the Evil afterlife of the caster's choice - and the Pharasmins don't have an answer either. The souls of the dead normally flow toward Judgment on the River of Souls, which takes some time, and then await Judgment, which does too, and only awaken in an afterlife after these things are past, but I don't believe it's actually impossible to then snatch a petitioner out of Heaven into their tortured bones with necromancy - however, I think spontaneous zombies tend to occur within the River of Souls time frame.

"Thinking of undeath as a sort of fourth evil afterlife is a good analogy, yes, one that you can free people from. There is always a chance that their trial will go their way, even if they did read evil in life. The behavior changes of undead are I think faster and less related to the individual's personality than the ones that occur in afterlives but it's a good comparison."

...

She can still be sent to hell even if she atones. If she makes the right enemies. Even after she has already died (i.e. as soon as she's not evil anymore) and actually gone to heaven. 

Think.

Think think think think think.

What are the incentives here? How does one get out of this? Not make any enemies. Not leave behind a body to manipulate. Have powerful allies who would notice and track down and destroy your undead body.

What do normal most people do? Live with everpresent threat of eternal torture after death? Well, if they can't act on it then they can just ignore it, right. Most people can't actually make powerful allies of that kind. Most people have an instinct not to think about terrible things they can't avoid. ...no, that's actually not true about people who fear hell, who were told they can't avoid it by any personal unilateral action. They still spend their lives desperately begging god to save them. 

...this is irrelevant. This whole tangent is irrelevant and she's making the same mistake she's thinking about. She will stop being evil first, and then she will research ways to protect against necromancy (and malediction, however that works) before dying.

Deep breath.

"I see. Thank you. I'm planning to talk to the Abadarans, today if they have a free slot or in a few days if they don't, about ways I might make money. I will of course tell them I won't kill people, and in fact I won't tell them anything about my weapons except that I can defend myself. I assume they won't know about work killing only dangerous beasts, because nobody is hiring for that... But they're still my best chance for quickly figuring out how I can make enough money to live on and donate. And repay my companion. I'm - not sure yet what else to do, in the near term. Maybe I'll benefit from reading Shelynite books - or other books, or sermons - I heard your sermon today. I... probably didn't appreciate it correctly, I didn't try to - mentally challenge it, and myself. Do you have any recommendations for what I should do, or learn about?"

"I do think you might appreciate the Acts of Iomedae even if the Iomedaeans themselves are not your natural companions. The Melodies are Shelyn's book but better appreciated in a community that you don't have yet. You might... want some kind of introductory guide for adventurers, even though you won't be a conventional adventurer, just because it will mention common knowledge about things like the undead that I've just explained in the course of mentioning exceptions - most people know that undead are a problem so this isn't written down, but the adventurer's guide might say that ghosts in particular are sometimes not evil, for instance, communicating both the exception and the rule. I am not sure to what extent the book I've just imagined exists; the Nethysians should."

"That's a good idea, I'll ask them. And read the Acts." Tanya can learn all the rules and exceptions and follow them, but she can't do it in a week and (more importantly) it sounds like there isn't an authoritative set of books or an exam that can certify she knows everything, and she shouldn't harm or kill people if she might not know everything unless she has absolutely no choice.

 It's getting late and she wants to talk to Belmarniss before they meet the Abadarans. "Is there anything else? I need to leave soon but I'll come back, today if needed."