"What other gods are there that I absolutely should know about, what would you say are the most powerful / dangerous countries in modern golarion, and what would you describe as the 5 biggest problems with the current state of the world? Either consensus or your own personal opinion for the last is fine, as long as you let me know which is which."

"Probably the most relevant to you, outside the ancient gods, Nethys, and the starstone ascendant are Irori, Milani, and maybe Smiad. Irori, also known as the master of masters, is a Lawful Neutral Vudran god who supposedly ascended due to self perfection. His church is fairly notable even in the inner sea, and he's known to be a patron to many monks and other practitioners of Ki as he once was in life. Milani is the Chaotic Good goddess of hope and revolution; we work closely with her followers, both due to shared goals and a shared history that carried over from when both she and Iomedae followed Aroden. Smiad is an empyreal lord - that is, a demigod - rather than a full god, but He is known to favor fighting evil dragons, so might look highly upon you. Possibly not, though, since the dragon is still alive? I'm sorry, I'm only familiar with him in passing.

"In the inner sea and Avistan, the most powerful nations are generally agreed to be Cheliax, Taldor, and Galt. Nidal is particularly strong for its size, with essentially all the clerics for one of the ancient gods in one country, but it's small and poor which limits the danger. Absalom is likewise very difficult to conquer and has never been successfully invaded, in addition to being very wealthy, but has historically had a hard time transforming that into a influence abroad. Razmiran is a completely unremarkable nation that happens to have a 9th circle wizard as its god king, and unlike Felandriel Morgethai it's not impossible he would try something; Irissin likewise, although even if Baba Yaga doesn't interfere some of her descendants are still powerful spellcasters. Going beyond Avistan, the Padishah Empire of Kelesh, Vudra, and Minkai are all powerful nations in a traditional sense, with the former even possessing territories in Avistan, while Geb is an otherwise not especially powerful nation ruled by Geb, who is plausibly the most powerful person in Golarion and enslaved Arazni to run it for him.

"The Worldwound and Infernal Cheliax are widely considered both the biggest problems with Golarion and those most likely to get worse in the near future. Outside of that, it becomes less clear; Nidal and Geb are both horrific nations, but their evil has been largely stable and directed inwards, which means they are not especially likely to become more dangerous than they currently are. Also plausible candidates are the House of Oblivion, which is a permanent portal to Abbadon located in Thuvia that regularly spews Divs like the worldwound does demons. Ustulav is... perhaps halfway under control, but the undead infestation there is both an ongoing torment for both the enslaved souls and the living and if they ever managed to free Tar-Baphon would immediately become the biggest threat in Golarion, outstripping even the worldwound. Outside of specific countries, there's the fact that between a quarter and 35% of the population ends up in evil afterlives when they die."

Controlling for the fact that she's getting the 30 second summary, Irori doesn't sound exactly like her kind of thing. Not zero like it, but there are other saiyans she knows that kind of a focus would apply to way more. Milani, on the other hand, sounds like exactly her speed and plausibly a good source of advice for how to make her next revolution not fail. She'll have to make some time to talk with some clerics of Milani and get a better feel for her. As for Smiad... honestly, she's not sure how to respond to that. A demigod of slaying dragons? That's so specific, how could that possibly come up often enough to matter?

The overlap of powerful countries and biggest problems definitely is kind of unfortunate, but in a sense it probably shouldn't surprise her; if it were otherwise, the problems would probably be less intractable. She should probably also be expecting a lot of the countries which don't rank as problems to still be really bad in a lot of ways; it's true of Garenhuld now, and was more true at an equivalent technological level. She probably also ought to look into the problem of if there are any readily end-able wars, but that's probably not the priority in the next few days.

"What would need to be true - or need to stop being true - for those problems to be solved? Like, suppose someone decided to close the House of Oblivion, what would be the kinds of difficulties you would expect them to encounter?"

Probably for a lot of them she either won't want to solve it whatever way seems obvious to them or has capabilities they don't even have in their solution space, but it'll probably helpful to get an idea of how they would go about problem solving it.

"For Cheliax, the main problem is that prior to Hell taking over, they were unquestionably the strongest nation in the inner sea and the support from Hell is enough to make up for many of the downsides to their policies; Asmodeus and His Archdevils preferentially choose clerics there to make up for their limitations on the worship of other gods, Hell gives them funding to support a schooling system to keep up their wizard numbers after the economic collapse of the civil war, Soul Sales allow them to keep the loyalty of their wizards without Cheliax having to compromise with their interests, and so forth. To deal with them... if you could somehow force Hell to withdraw their backing, it would collapse in short order. Otherwise, it would probably require beating them in the field so their armies can't maintain order, wrecking enough of their security state that they can't keep up the oppression, or systematically tear off provinces in revolts like with Andoran. If there was a way to remove the current queen, Abrogail Thrune II, that Hell could not simply retrieve her from that would probably also help; she's unusually competent as Thrunes go, and they were losing territory notably more quickly before her ascension."

That Lastwall's plan is most likely the second via Galt, he thinks but does not say. He hasn't actually been informed that they're helping Galt at all, much less to that extent for that purpose; it's just a guess from them looking like they might be able to take a successful swing at Cheliax in the next decade.

"For Nidal... it's less clear. People have tried no few things in the thousands of years it's been around, and none of them have stuck. Historically, the main problem has always been Zon Kuthon putting His thumb on the scales; He has a lot of power and a lot of subordinate outsiders in reserve He can draw upon to defend His interests. Either something would need to be done by the gods to prevent Him from intervening, or a lot of overwhelming force such that you ran him up past the maximum he is permitted by treaty, and then you would still have to deal with an impoverished uneducated and very traumatized population creating a humanitarian nightmare, especially since if they died from a lack of help they'd most likely end up in Xovaikain or Hell anyway.

"The Worldwound - and the House of Oblivion to a lesser extent - would need either custom Wishes or Miracles to close the planar tear, at minimum, but that wouldn't be enough by itself; the high priestess of Sarenrae was escorted to Threshold with the assistance of a dozen of the strongest the strongest adventurers in the known world to fend off the demons. She then called upon her goddess for a miracle and it didn't work. The spell completed successfully, the tear shrunk a bit temporarily, and things got very bright, but there was some force holding it open that Sarenrae couldn't fit enough power through a miracle to overcome. Our best guess is that the Demon Lords Deskari and Baphomet are primarily responsible, but it's entirely possible they have more support than that. Designing custom Wishes is also one of the leading causes of death for 9th circle wizards, historically speaking, so I would expect any candidate to be reluctant to try. The House of Oblivion might prove more tractable since Ahriman doesn't appear to actually care about maintaining it personally, but it's also been less of a priority because of it being less dangerous.

"As for Geb, short of Nex making a surprise reappearance there's not much hope for it getting solved. We were previously planning to wait on Aroden's return and the Age of Glory to deal with it, but once that ended up not materializing the prospects ran dry. While most of its politics isn't unified enough to create an expansionist policy, it's got the most high level undead per capita of anywhere on Golarion and liches and vampires tend to be notably stronger than they were in life. A great deal of the undead in question also happened to be extremely strong before transforming, including several necromancers that got experience in the war on Nex and are at least 8th circle, and they would unite in the case of an external threat or an order from Geb. Last time we tried doing something about it, he killed the crusaders in our vanguard, raised them as undead slaves, and then teleported to Lastwall to raise our former patron demigod, Arazni, as a lich to run the day to day affairs of his country since he couldn't be bothered. We didn't think that kind of thing was possible even in theory, but 9th circle wizards as old as he is tend to treat rules of reality as more of a suggestion. In life and as Aroden's herald, she was already one of the most capable wizards in history; being a lich most likely made that even more true, though it's hard to verify. And even if someone managed to get past all of that, that would just mean that they had to face Geb himself. It's not clear if anyone could actually beat him short of a weight in numbers of 9th circles that hasn't existed in over 5000 years, and even then if he didn't get finished off beyond the ability of his contingencies to save him from in the first 12 seconds of so it would most likely not stick.

"Ustulav is a lot more tractable, comparatively speaking. We are currently making progress on solving the worst of the undead issues, although things have slowed down since the worldwound opened and we lost Cheliax's support; just any notable amount of assistance could end up tipping the scales and letting things get back under control more quickly. Once the undead are dealt with it would still be a deeply cursed country, of course, but it would be a great victory in itself and would leave both us and Ustulav better equipped to handle the myriad other issues."

It seems pretty clear they would want her to help with Ustulav first, which seems fair enough? If they're already working on the problem, it makes sense that it would be the one they think is both most solvable and have the best handle on how to solve. There's absolutely a part of her that wants to just fly into Geb right this minute and make them knock it off, but going unprepared into the territory of a magic user of unknown capabilities is exactly the mistake Yammar made that caused a good half of their problems with Dandeer, so she'll be responsible and refrain.

Well, refrain at least until she learns what it is that normal 9th circle wizards do besides, apparently, granting wishes. There's probably a sense in which her optimal course of action here would be to fetch a few hundred more diamonds for Lastwall, put on an intelligence headband, and then spend the next year training inside a secret demiplane, but such a regime of training alone would be punishing even for the most martial arts inclined of Saiyans. There's more than one reason even Goku brought his son with him into the room of spirit and time when training for Cell, and despite her name Kakara is quite unlike her ancestor in that regard. If she tried to spend all of her time training in isolation, she might get a month in of passable training, another 2 months of steadily falling results, and then spend the rest of the year going increasingly stir crazy due to lack of social contact and boredom. If the world was going to be destroyed in 3 months or some similar deadline, she'd probably try and give it a shot anyway, but it would massively suck and offer no guarantee of success.

Kakara thanks the historian for his time, and goes off to see if she can arrange a meeting with a cleric of Milani or some follower of Smiad, since it at least seems worth 20 minutes to check.

They don't currently have any paladins of Smiad in Lastwall or Mendev's records, which means most likely there aren't any in Avistan or the inner sea. It's not impossible there might be one in Tian Xia or Vudra or Arcadia at the moment, if there was a sufficiently bad Dragon problem to cause the need, but Smiad tends to have one strong paladin occasionally rather than a steady stream of mid strength ones; while both Demigods and Gods have limits to have many of their worshippers they can empower at once, the constraints on the former are notably tighter due to the relative power between them. If it's necessary, they could send an archon to deliver a message, but the gods of Good in general and Heaven in specific tend to share relevant information, so if he is inclined to assist he would almost certainly be forewarned enough to identify a prayer.

Compared to Iomedae, far fewer of Milani's empowered clerics come from within the ranks of Her official churches; she retains the majority of her empowerment to give aid and succor to those in most need. Still, Lastwall has a stronger presence of her faith acting openly than anywhere besides maybe Andoran, and Her temple in Vigil never closes its doors.

Praying is not really a natural mental motion for Kakara. Even at the ancestor cult meetings she attended, she did so as a mediator and secular leader (and, in uncomfortably large part, as an person of worship). Sure, there's a sense in which she has a closer relationship with the divine than any of the priests there, but that's her grandfather; worshiping him would just be weird. Still, she does her best to think back to the events that day - Dazarel, in his terrible strength and psychic might, and they super saiyans, glowing gold with the legacy of their Saiyan heritage. She thinks of people she was defending, the desire to keep them safe, and yes, the fear that their strength would not be enough. She thinks of the feel of the grass, the realization that in truth everything was one, and the moment everything clicked and she suddenly could construct the spirit bomb, its immense energies fueled by the willing donation of nearly everyone in Garenhuld, a collaborative effort to drive off he who would consume them all. And she thinks of the moment of victory where he was sealed away, struggling and raging but impotent before the sheer weight of her donated KI, secure in the knowledge he would never harm anyone again.

It's not really the kind of mortal He usually goes for. Good, yes, but not Lawful; renowned, certainly, but while she has honor her shape is one that would set it aside if the need were great enough. But it's not deniable that she did defeat a dragon far more powerful than the ones He usually has even his empowered paladins go for, and her willingness to sacrifice her own safety and well being to aid others is wholly sufficient. Even if he was not forwarned, this is a prayer Smiad would hear. Unfortunately, despite all that she has done in His domain there are limits on the assistance He can offer. She is not Lawful enough for Him to make a Paladin, and what levels He could offer would be, he thinks, almost wholly redundant in any case. His senses are less sharp than Iomedae's, but they are sufficient to tell that with the scale of the energy involved all a minor intervention would do is gild the lily, and even borrowing against His future budget and all Heaven can spare Him granting 17 Paladin levels to make her immune to compulsions is simply beyond His abilities.

It is also not in Smiad's nature to abandon those who have aided him (and she has aided him, undeniably so, both in the shared goal of Good for the flourishing of all sentient beings and by doing so within his own idiom-) when they need help in accomplishing Good deeds beyond their abilities just because it would come at a cost to Him.

:You are known to me, Kakara Goku, and held in high esteem. Should circumstances leave you with no choice but to assail the pit, I will do what I can to remove obstacles from your path:

And then He ends the connection at that. It's not, in fact, that expensive an intervention, but He's going to need to save up everything He has and more if He wants to survive keeping Dahak's attention off of her for long enough to matter should the day come.

That was... more abrupt, than with Iomedae, and she doesn't think it was just a matter of power? There wasn't any of the fraying she's come to associate with supporting a connection as long as it can go, but presumably Smiad has their reasons; she's not sure exactly what his offer of help entails, but she's pretty sure she's going to need all of it she can get if she wants to succeed.

...She also has something of a headache now, surprisingly. Talking to her grandfather was never like that, and neither was Iomedae. She's not entirely sure if it's a demigod thing or a Smiad thing or just a "some gods" thing but she's not exactly raring to go to the temple of Milani right this minute. Can they recommend her a dark place that's safe to relax and rest her eyes for an hour while she waits for the throbbing to die down a bit?

That's an easy set of desiderata to fulfill; most of their secure forbiddances and demiplanes can be made dark pretty easily. Since she can provide the transportation back, they're going to reccomend one of their smaller demiplanes as a solution; a forbiddance in Vigil is almost certainly safe but it's a good habit not to reliably leave bait worth trying for.

It actually takes a bit more than an hour for her to get back to 100%, but probably at least part of that was due to the whole... everything that happened in the last few days. Kakara might not, technically speaking, need to sleep, but that doesn't mean she can constantly run herself to the point of exhaustion with no consequences. The vision-headache was simply the bit that got her to call for the break she needed. By the time she instant transmissions back to Golarion with the cleric that brought her there, they've obtained and finished resizing the mind buttressing armor they obtained for her, so she can put it on with significantly more enthusiasm than you would expect armor of that technology level to warrant and crack open a few books while she waits for Felandriel Morgethai's schedule to be clear for her arrival.

It's a pretty good selection of books, especially when you consider it's in the secured base of a religious military order located way out in the boonies and under threat from at least three different exterior forces who would love to wipe it out!

Kakara will do her best not to compare it to the Exile or Aramaian library systems, then. It is quite nice that share language lets her read most of them directly rather than have to have them read to her or some other translation mechanism.

In that case, it probably won't be too long before they're ready with a teleport to take her to Almas University, Andoran. Obviously she could just instant transmission over, but it's unlikely that would naively get her to the school's teleportation landing zone without having been there before and ending up somewhere else could draw some attention.

Almas university is perhaps not the most representative example of Andoran you could imagine, but it's certainly still quite impressive. The rooms are lit by permanant mage light, everything is kept completely spotless (including at least one unseen servant to deal with any dirt residue left by shoes), the air is at a uniformly pleasant temperature, and the furnishings are perhaps not extravagant but certainly of fine quality and solid make. There's also a simply absurd number of magical defenses, though most of them appear to be inactive, the most impressive of which she can identify seems to be a massive permanent spell that forces any warping attempt into its boundaries to instead end up at specific endpoints. It does not, unfortunately, seem to cover the entire school, but the design seems to look modular enough that you could expand it if it became necessary without leaving gaps or injuring the extant structure. The majority of the students seem to be human, but there are no small number of dwarves, elves, halflings, and even a handful of half-orcs and gnomes in attendance. Her gear does seem to be notably more magical than that of most of the people she passes, but the difference is a question of degree rather than kind, and its appearance doesn't seem to stand out much.

As promised, they are indeed expected and are readily escorted past security checkpoints once the identity of her companions is confirmed.

They specifically made sure there wouldn't be any inconvenient checks for polymorph on Kakara such as via True Seeing; they didn't have to explain why, but they're sure Morgethai will have some uncomfortably accurate guess to relay when they meet. The rest of the security measures are more strict to compensate, but they are indeed who they say they are so there's no actual issue.

For the last stretch they'll go through a forbiddance, the password to which is apparently 'an archmage' because Cheliax "will never get it." The threshold is Neutral Good (Sarenrae's high priestess being easier to get ahold of on a schedule than Desna's) which means that Kakara technically doesn't have to say anything, but her companions will unless they want to get zapped. After they make it through that final hurdle, they'll arrive at the permanant gate to one of Felandriel Morgethai's publicly known demiplanes and the university security will stop on this side of the threshold.

She'll speak the words aloud anyway just to be safe, and then try to make sense of the folded space at the gateway. She can see some similarities to the underlying process of instant transmission, but for the most part it's incredibly alien and also very cool.

Then once inside she can encounter Felandriel Morgethai, who appears to her eyes to be a stunningly beautiful woman of indeterminate age bedecked in a mixture of fantastically expensive and shockingly ordinary items and to her sight and Ki sense as so much empty air.

"So this is the person you've found to solve your logistics problems? And here about by help in payment, I assume?"

ping

Huh. She's pretty sure it's not an illusion, she'd expect to be able to at least see the magic making it up via the sight. A hologram, then? Some specific warding spell, like the mind blank she was given earlier this morning?

ping

There's something of an odd echo, maybe, if she focuses on the result of her Ki sense; perhaps enough to tell that something was up now that she's aware of the discrepancy, but that she'd expect to dismiss as nothing without prompting. Probably trying to turn that impression into a method of determining her actual vector would be considered rude.

"Our interests turned out to be significantly more aligned than that implies, but that's mostly correct. We'd like to commission some wishes and a clone, including up to a wish to accelerate the latter process, under the usual secrecy requirements."

They remove three now-cut diamonds from a bag and place them upon the table.

Felandriel Morgethai's immediately gets much more serious.

"These aren't the only ones you now have, are they."

"No, they are not, and yes, we're willing to part with some not needed for the wishes we have in mind for the right price or a sufficiently good reason. Do you have one prepared today?"