Well, mostly the villages have a head, who reports to the Quendi, and makes sure that there are no problems with enlistment, and distributes pensions from the Quendi, and he's also the one who'd deliver a petition if there was need of one.

Which sorts of decisions does the head make, and which do the Quendi? What are some petitions they've delivered before? How are village heads selected?

How heads are selected depends on the village. Some do it as the son of the last head, or by having the last head pick someone, or by having all the elders pick someone, or by whoever gets along with the Quendi best. 

Petitions are things like that they should be sent grain because the harvest failed or that a gifted child should be taken to study in a Quendi city or that there's problems with wild animals. The Quendi decide whether to send grain or take the children or go wipe out the animals.

Élie's not going to ask about the quality of those decisions with Quendi in the room, because he's not a complete idiot.

Would they like to know about the society he comes from? 

They would! 

He was born in a placed called Mérue, a little town of about ten thousand souls, but mostly grew up in the city of Isarn. Five hundred thousand people live there, mostly humans. It's not the biggest city in his world. It has a university and parks and theaters and museums and opera houses and starving artists who live in garretts. It has cafés and mansions and apartment blocks and skilled artisans of every kind. It has chestnut trees, with branches that grow so heavy in autumn they hang into the river Sellen. 

Most importantly, it is governed by its people. Every adult in his country – it's called Galt – votes to elect a representative who speaks for them in the national assembly. They make decisions like who should fight in the army, or what to do if a province has too little grain, or how much money to spend on educating children. If the people aren't happy with the decisions their representative makes, they can choose another. They do it this way because the people – of Mérue, of Isarn, of Litran and Tournivel and Iobéré and everywhere else – are the ones who know best what they need, not some far-off monarch who doesn't even speak their language. A country governed in this way is called a Republic. Their Republic is very young, but it will last, and grow stronger. That's because a Republic makes its people strong. Instead of suppressing their natural talents, they're encouraged to use them for the common good. Rather than being kept ignorant, they improve their minds through free and spirited discussion of public affairs. It's a challenge, to be a citizen instead of a subject, but humans and all the other reasoning beings can rise to it. 

(So he devoutly hopes). 

That's so clever! Though...it wouldn't be a good idea to have humans in charge here because they flatly don't live long enough.

Maybe so. It seems to work on Golarion just fine and humans there don't live any longer. 

Well, how long is the longest the Republic has sustained a war effort?

His Republic's only existed for five years. But there are other human institutions which have existed for centuries. Some of them have even been fighting Evil all that time (though usually with some divine assistance). 

....huh. Well, that's really promising. Though they don't have...divine assistance? What would gods even help with, anyway.

Where he's from there are lots and lots of gods, and some of them are much more helpful than others. Mostly they grant their followers the ability to do useful magic, especially healing. 

Well, all the gods are useless or evil here. The useless ones don't want humans around because they aren't perfect enough and the evil one, well, enough said.

Back home it's mostly an Evil god who think humans aren't perfect enough and his go-to solution involves torturing them for centuries until they turn into his mindless servants. The helpful gods aren't powerful enough to defeat him on their own, but one day mortal beings will find a way to do it. 

Yeah, they're also working on how people can beat gods. It won't happen in any of their lifetimes, but it'll happen someday.

...Until that happens, it's very, very important that they avoid going to one of the Evil afterlives. 

....how.

This will have to be a longer, later conversation, when he's had more of a chance to see how they live. In the meantime – do they have a concept of Evil, distinct at all from the Quendi one?

....not really? The Quendi know a lot more philosophy and theology and so on.

Yeah, that's about what he expected. Then, for now – they should be kind. They should be generous to the poor. They should avoid using physical violence on anyone weaker than themselves. They should fight Evil, if at all possible, though it sounds like they're already on that. Babies get their souls some time between conception and birth and if they die in the womb they go to an immeasurable divine graveyard where if they're lucky they'll be raised by packs of feral children like themselves – so no abortion, and no infanticide. He knows that's not much help to a woman who can't feed another mouth, but sometimes the universe is that way. 

Oh, the Quendi are also against that. The Quendi say they should just live apart as husbands and wives, when they are not actively yearning for a new child, though it isn't easy if you're less patient than Quendi and the Quendi do also say that their large families are among their great strengths.

Yeah. Humans on Golarion aren't especially good at it either. (Élie is, though. He just has to think about his baby being eternally tortured and it immediately kills the mood). They do, uh, know about non-procreative sex, right? (He really hopes they do, because  otherwise he might die on the spot). 

Yes. Even Quendi do that, though it's not allowed in Valinor because the Valar are very picky.

How very odd. Of course, there's always situational homosexuality. 

Extremely not allowed in Valinor! They get the vague impression there was a whole thing about it at one point. The King has a male lover and it's...not mostly to spite the Valar, that would be absurd, but - whenever it's mentioned so is the fact the Valar disapprove, you know?