Yeah that's news. "We heard."

And to Iomedae, "...Apparently they don't have Prophecy anymore. It stopped working when Aroden failed to reappear for the Age of Glory. Or so the stories say, Korva obviously wasn't there. Which maybe explains some things, about Your choices there - and also means the Worldwound might be much more dire than I was expecting."

" - huh, yeah, if Commune were actually incredibly expensive I guess I might tell people to go through the people who know how to do it properly -

- prophecy broken when Aroden failed to reappear -"

He couldn't have done that on purpose, right? 

"...I have no idea. I would expect if Anyone knew it could be done then He wouldn't be allowed - but maybe they didn't know it could be done until He did it - He might be able to tell us, now that we've heard it from another source but - we might not want to ask. In case some fragment of Pharasma is monitoring Communes or something - "

Nod. "I can ask the other Iomedae, once we've vetted Her."

"Sorry," says Marit, turning back to Korva. "that's important and I wanted to make sure they caught it. It might explain why Iomedae the god isn't better, which is a question of some importance to Iomedae the human and also to Her incipient Church, which is to say most of us. And it - suggests that your problems are higher priority than we previously thought they were, probably."

"Hey, that's why we're going over this. I always love to hear my problems are high-priority, especially when people send me more than a couple dozen soldiers about it." That second one doesn't happen very often.

He smiles at her, at that. "- that was actually, before we got distracted by prophecy, the next line of advice I was going to give. You don't have the financial backing of the Western Empire, or its forces? Who do you have in Westcrown trying to change that."

" - Cheliax, I see. You mean Cheliax. I grew up there. It gained independence from Taldor some - what, six hundred and fifty years ago, I think that one's agreed on? Cheliax holds a long stretch of the northern edge of the Worldwound; like everyone else, they consider themselves to have committed what forces they can to the cause long ago. Those forces include the bulk of the order of the Godclaw, a few thousand ordinary soldiers, and nearly every first and second circle wizard the country trains takes at least one term of service there. But those forces hold the northern edge, and don't answer to me. The closest thing we have to a representative of the Chelish forces with the crusade itself is Regill, right now."

"The Chelish forces are, as Regill says, capable of working with the Mendevians on a narrow set of goals, such as 'the world should continue to exist'. But modern Cheliax has been Asmodean for seventy years, and relations between it and the other Worldwound nations are - complicated. We take Hellknights when we can."

"Asmodean?"

"Well, if it's a trap, there's the trap."

"Well. I'm not sure what the trap wants us to do besides charge in there and try to topple the empire."

"Yeah. Do you want me to go over the existing players and their current politics, I'm feeling like I should be drawing a map or something."

Marit has very good bluff. "Yeah, that sounds useful. Cheliax - including Andoran and Isger and Molthune Province, or are those with the east -"

"No, no, it's all broken into pieces. Here, I've got some paper, if we don't want to waste a real map. Cheliax here, Asmodean and ruled by House Thrune. Nidal's as it's always been. Molthune claims all of this, but doesn't hold all of its territory, they're in a bit of a civil war with the people in the forest, as everyone reminds me whenever the forest people ask to help and then we have to have an argument about what banners they display. I think it broke away during the initial Chelish Civil War, which lasted for - I think thirty years, after Aroden died. You've got Varisia and some scattered Ulfen kingdoms up here, they're not worthless but they're too small to offer very much - though Kalsgard's much bigger, now. Lastwall's here, mostly Iomedan. Belkzen is all held by orcs. Irrisen, actually an important resource, but not one that anyone ever talks to. They've got a bunch of magical huts that hold the western edge of the worldwound without coordinating with anyone else. The wound itself, where Sarkoris used to be. Mendev over here. Brevoy over here, sort of like Mendev except without its entire national identity revolving around the Worldwound. Numeria, which has a monarch but is I think in practice mostly nomads - and robots, I don't know whether it's also full of robots now. Ustalav, I think it's kind of internally too much of a mess to offer much help to the crusade. Bunch of little river kingdoms here. Razmiran, ruled by a powerful wizard who claims to be a god, pretty sure he's not. Galt here, broke away from Cheliax maybe fifteen years ago, has been through at least three governments since then and gone through several rounds of mass executions of the previous governments. Andoran, broke away around the same time, immediately did an about face and is now telling everyone that it's full of freedom and fluffy bunnies and sending out pirates to raid everyone else's slave ships. Some complicated situation going on over here in Druma, my impression is that it's a couple different puppet states being puppeted by different people. Isger, Chelish client state."

"We get a little help from northern Garund, but not much. Osirion, broke away from Kelesh and became an Abadaran theocracy - I have heard like twelve different things about the extent to which the restored pharaoh is literally Abadar, including several different ones from clerics of Abadar, but at least some people claim that he's literally Abadar. Thuvia, collection of city states that I hear are currently doing large-scale engagements of divs in the desert. Rahadoum, broke away from Cheliax and outlawed the worship of all gods afterward. Anything you want more info on, point."

Marit is boggling at the broken-apart Empire, thinking.

"Who's got a ninth circle wizard?" he asks, because Iomedae and Alfirin will be wondering.

"Oh, let's see. Razmiran has Razmir, of course, who refuses to allow anyone to worship other gods in his territory and insists he's one himself. - I'm assuming he's not, but, you know, I haven't exactly made figuring that out my top priority. Andoran has Felandriel Morgethai, chaotic good elf wizard, runs a university. And Osirion has Nefreti Clepati, high priest of Nethys. I think she might be a ninth circle cleric and also a ninth circle wizard? That's just the people who advertise, of course, people say all kinds of things about people who might not."

He nods. "How is Cheliax governed? Directly by the Church of Asmodeus?"

"No, they still have a monarchy, but the monarchs have some kind of deal with Hell. Or claim to, I guess it's hard to say what the real situation is. The church does have a lot of power, though. Secondary worship of most other gods is allowed, but they generally don't allow clerics of other deities into the country."

"- I have, actually, never thought how fast I could take the Empire if I wanted to. It seemed like a fairly antisocial thing to have detailed plans for."

"I don't have a plan ready to go either." She doesn't want the Empire and Iomedae wouldn't let her have it and a fight between her and the shining crusade would be horrendously pointlessly destructive.

“A lot depends on - what resources there are locally - what My Church is doing - and of course how many troops we could move across -”

She turns to look intently at Alfirin. “Will you do this with me, if it looks doable?” Because it is, in fact, also a pretty substantial risk, in a world where Aroden’s dead and Asmodeus ruling Cheliax and a thousand other things they don’t know about yet.

"Yes. Of course."

“I take it what remains of Taldor doesn’t really make itself useful? How about Absalom? Is the Arcanimirium still a thing? We do a lot of recruiting at orphanages and religious orders…”

"Oh, Taldor helps, they have some Worldwound forts too. Absalom is fine. We have some individual adventurers from there, now, but not in large numbers. We've started deliberately recruiting from Mendevian orphanages and refugees - Regill went to bat for that, other people keep making faces at me for it every time I order it. And it helps, of course, but as Regill says, we're low on people who can teach them to be soldiers. We did get some orphan kids who somehow made the journey to Drezen on their own and demanded to help, although a couple weeks later one of the adults from the orphanage came to lecture me for not sending them back. - we have them running errands for the Desnans, to be clear."

"I know that Queen Galfrey's officials in Nerosyan are trying to bring us recruits from further away, but - they seem to be affected by political concerns that I don't fully understand. Mostly, we get a constant stream of representatives from half the nations of Avistan, all of whom say a lot of pretty words about the importance of our cause, and then send us a single unit of a couple dozen men. And we get mercenaries, or individual adventurers, but obviously those want to be paid competitive amounts, which isn't necessarily something we can afford."