The monk hesitates for a moment. "... Why do you serve a god who you would describe as evil? I am happy to lecture on the Pantheon and it's various members, and provide due explanations, but I am concerned that your grasp of the language is not as good as it might seem from your fluency. Between that, and the fact that the entity which claims to be your god is local - a trait that the gods do not possess, but which many things which would like to pretend to be gods do, suggests to me that your education in theology might have been substantially misleading in ways more fundamental than you realise." 

If truespeech couldn't convey 'Evil', the monk must be completely ignorant of alignment...

"The terms Good and Evil are not my personal opinion - they're the opinions of the god Pharasma, who created the universe and built in Good and Evil, and Law and Chaos, as fundamental properties. Good is often beneficial, but not always, and not fully, and Marra is uniquely positioned to oppose the flaws of the Good ideology. Also: She offered me power that Good couldn't. She is fighting against another Lawful Evil god who is worse by almost any measure - Good agrees on that comparison. And I like Her and want to force the world to follow her principles of vanity, feudalism, paternalism, and rules. Obviously, I would be unhappy about being forced to obey a different Evil god, but that's irrelevant. Negotiating constructively with beings with different values is a matter of Law, of course, but I dislike many people's values and want them to have my values instead.

I suspect that either you have been substantially misled, or I have traveled farther than I thought. As far as I know, most gods operate throughout Pharasma's creation, but weaker ones might be limited to continents, planets, or species of followers.

A small point of evidence for this world being outside of Pharasma's creation is that Understanding sends minor visions to children merely because their education is inadequate. Where I'm from, visions are very expensive.

What kinds of entities pretend to be gods here?"

The monk will absorb this. 

"... I think you need to talk to the abbott." 

He does not pout, because monks do not pout. But he was enjoying doing his actual job. 

She's willing to follow him in, but listens and smells and looks around carefully... Wait no, that's not the main danger here. She checks over her desires and feelings and impression of Understanding (no change). Queues thinking about how the monk is behaving and pops it from the queue (he seems fine) - her mental structures are working normally.

Indeed. Instead of mysterious cognitohazards, she is faced by a middle-aged orc with a wiry build and a kind face, and a pot of aromatic tea. The junior monk sits behind him (with his own cup of tea) to observe, and the previous stages of the conversation are summarized to the Abbot.

"So, you are from another plane, and it seems that either you, or we, are very confused as to the nature of, among other things, the creation of the universe, the nature of the gods, and the nature of good and evil."

"So it seems. What do you believe about the creation of the universe? My understanding of cosmology allows for multiple universes created by different gods, choosing Their own laws governing, for example, planets, healing spells, and afterlives. If I traveled from a different universe, neither of us must be misled. However, that leaves the question of why I recognize so many breeds of mortals here... if my recognition is correct. How many bones does an orc have? Do you know the route of the nerve to your voicebox? Can you interbreed with an elf, a goblin, or a human?"

"Our cosmology also permits the conception of existances beyond the edge of reality, but there have only been a handful of recorded instances of an entity stepping out of the void and they're collectively so weird that many scholars believe them spontaneously generated rather than from anywhere; as such. Besides, your first prediction should never be 'the veil of is and is not has been breached', it's epistemically messy." 

"Our universe is some billions of years old, though the exact date is extremely unclear, and the only entity claiming to have created it - the archfey of genesis mythology - isn't particularly credible in those claims." 

"It would indeed be somewhat surprising for the worlds to have the same mortal races, really. Orcs have 206 bones, as do humans and elves. I'm not well-read enough on anatomy to know about the path my nerves take, beyond the most obvious. Orcs can interbreed with elves and humans, but not with any of the of goblinoid morphs." 

"Where I'm from, a typical adult orc is considered to have between 203 and 211 bones, depending on how you count them, but, in any case, more bones than humans, who have more bones than elves. Orcs can interbreed with elves, humans, and goblins, but the offspring with elves are infertile. The offspring with humans have a blend of human and orc traits, but the offspring with goblins appear to be unremarkable orcs or goblins. I've heard the theory that, for this reason, orcs should be considered to be another 'goblinoid morph'.

Consider the idea that our separate universes are independent, and I was chosen to be sent to your universe out of all the possibilities because I would find it familiar. I think that if the mortal races were exactly the same, that would mean that the multitude of universes and travelers must be larger in order to find such a close match. And since they're not the same, the set of options is smaller. But I'm not sure what conclusion to draw from that...

Another idea is that my universe is just a demiplane in yours, our Pharasma just a demigod or powerful adventurer by your standards. Of course, if Marra is not a 'true god', that doesn't change my duties to Her, but it might change my strategy.

Our universe is at least twelve thousand years old, possibly much older. I'd guess that the duration of our first 'age of creation' depended on the most efficient speed for gods to think and communicate at when there's nothing else going on, which I don't know. Pharasma's claim to have created the universe is not verifiable. She is the strongest god, but the universe is not perfect by Her standards. Perhaps this is the doing of the other gods, though, and creating Them was unavoidable for Her? There are also myths that some other gods already existed when Pharasma created our universe.

How do scholars think the entities you mention had been spontaneously generated? Why is that considered more likely than someone deliberately engineering a creature with fabricated memories?"

"How odd. Orcs and elves produce children which are clearly one or other, and either race produces hybrids with normal humans. Both races were designed from human stock by the same ancient creators (may they be reviled forever). Goblins are a completely different sort of thing." 

"Your theory that you were sent here for this world's familiarity does sound plausible, if you were sent here deliberately, but if travel between worlds is possible and some worlds were created, then it seems plausible that such interworld transit is the source of such similarities. Perhaps your Pharasma was inspired by things which evolved elsewhere, or the ancient creators of our local peoples took inspiration from that which washed up from the void." 

"Pharasma seems to at least have age and power on her side; The archfey of genesis is not consistent with his claims as to how the universe was made and is of only average strength for an archfey of global scope. Most people do not have perfect control over that which they create, after all." 

"Positing an entity which is deliberately creating the entities which arrive from nothing would imply an entity much stronger than existing gods - since several entities which have arrived through the void are as strong as gods or other lesser imperial powers, but which has no clear agenda, since those entities are strange and not aligned with one another in nature or purpose. The proposed mechanism of generation is beyond my grasp of the theory, but I am given to understand it involves the fact that the void outside the universe lacks cause and effect, so in principle anything could occur there."

"In practice, what tests could we run, and how would the results matter? I'm not planning on returning to my universe. Either Marra will be able to choose clerics here or She won't be. My main concern, then, is the afterlives of mortal followers of Marra here. 

Is there magic here that could locate Pharasma's demiplane? What's wrong with the creators of orcs and elves? Our goblins often have painfully impacted teeth, something like that?"

"It's a matter of scholarly interest. Also, you're not the only void-arrival who has had hope of reinforcement. The Gehenna war-world also claims that it is merely the beachead for a greater multiversal empire, but it's been a few millenia so people don't really believe them anymore. But yes, very hard to test. I wouldn't be expecting your goddess to intervene in your favour any time soon."

"Assuming it is in fact a demiplane and not as discussed another universe, that seems like something any arch-ritualist should in theory be able to make progress on, albiet at great expense." 

The monk gives a pointed look. "They created slave-races to use as they see fit. Thier empire was a work of totalitarian cruelty the likes of which has never been seen again, now that it's last vestiges have finally fallen these past few hundred years." 

"Hm, well I'm willing to trade information about my 'world'."

Sounds tyrannical. "What gods was their empire associated with? What do you mean by 'slave race' - why couldn't they have used baseline humans?"

"I'm not sure what information about your world would interest an archmage, I don't know any personally, but they do tend to like secrets about the fundamental nature of reality, you can't become an archmage if you're not willing to take insane risks for the sake of further magical knowledge."

"The gods tend to be cagy about their mortal lives, or about affiliation with states which fell millennia ago. What I can say with certainty is that the goddess Rivers, whose domains also include purity and nationalism, thinks that the remaining high elf holdouts have a good thing going and supports them regularly and that the god Death-by-Violence, who I personally hold in esteem second only to my patron, was once a slave-general in their armies, and stole godhood from them. The drow demon-goddess dead not more than two centuries ago was one of them, and her underdark empire of sadism was in many ways the last remnant of what that empire once was. One can thus suppose that her coterie - the gods Torture, Espionage, Spiders, and Yearning, were also from that empire. The Lord High Coward is the only mortal from that age still alive in any public capacity - presumably he'd know more." 

"Humans are imperfect in innumerable ways, and they thought that their genetic engineering could make people better-suited for the tasks they had for them. Orcs and Elves are designed to be cheap, not requiring any more magic to grow than a human, which limited their art in many ways but also makes us the only ones who could hope to survive their downfall. Elves are beautiful, at least by the standards of the age, and they are good at work requiring finesse and detail and they can work for another four hours a day without suffering long-term consequences, making them superior servants and artists. Orcs are stronger and harder to kill, and they made us optimists - there isn't an orc alive who doesn't believe the next great victory is just over the horizon. They didn't realise that high morale would do more for the slave rebellions than it would for the loyal slaves, I think. There's a reason there are far more elves still chained by the memory of long-dead masters than there are orcs." 

"Rivers cares about purity as in perfect efficient elegance which only elves are capable of? Or racial purity? I know plenty of gods that care about a particular race but none that care about purity in general... actually Nethys is in favor of cross-breeding in general, so it's not that strange.

What do you like about Death-By-Violence? How do mortals become gods?"

Presumably the Lord High Coward is a royal advisor who has to argue against everything the King proposes, or specifically against wars. Sounds easy enough to find if she wants more information later, but right now her main goal is to figure out where Marra's interests can be served and who to ally with.

"What gods are similar to Marra? Wanting people to be awesome, even if it hurts to get there, wanting people to love themselves, wanting people to follow rules over feelings?"

"To be generous, Rivers believes that people live better lives if they live among their own kind in both culture and blood in their native homeland. To be less generous, she saw the symbolism of rivers acting as geographical boundaries and purity of those rivers being of tremendous importance to the people around them and took an opportunity to enter local politics for further influence." 

"Death-by-Violence relates his domain to all the consequences and causes of violence. The act is less important, in his mind, than the reasons and the consequences. His priests manage the harms of violence without attempting to unduly prevent it, which has a lot of value in a world as dangerous as this one - they do things like give advice to new adventurers or people embarking on quests for vengeance. He has also always supported my ancestors through their struggles, and will do so in future, so I have a personal fondness that goes beyond practical need." 

"Mortals mostly become gods by usurping the title from an existing god. Making a new divine mantle is beyond the arts of modern archmages, but before the Fall it was more common - once there were no gods at all." 

"Non-comprehensively, as well as Understanding's own quest for enlightenment, Ambition, Forge and Soil sound relevant for wanting people to be awesome even at the cost of pain - Ambition speaks to getting what you want and need at any cost, Forge to transformation and creation without hesitation or mercy, and Soil to paying down into long-term investments even if you're not sure you'll ever see the payoff. Wanting people to love themselves might be the domain of Hearth, Renewal, Void or She-is, though I must warn that the latter is considered mildly heretical due to her refusal to join the pantheon when it was formed, and does not tend to favour those who are not gnolls. Hearth cares for healing and comfort and the quiet enjoyment of home. Renewal to fixing and growing and healing re-broken bones and love in general. Void is concerned with all the problems of a broken and isolated self, among other things. Wanting people to follow rules over feelings ... I don't think you mean Physics, whose domain is those rules of reality which do not consider minds to be ontologically fundamental, like gravity or many chemical reactions, but instead something more like Civilization, who has a specific code of laws they'd like everyone to be following, or Storm, who rails against people who grow complacent in times of plenty and do not take steps for dealing with future disaster? Soil and Metal together created the Old Law that the dwarves follow, principles designed to outlive mortals and states alike. Perhaps also the Formian gods might be of interest - Worker who slaves, Warrior who guards, Taskmaster who plans, Myrmarch who exceeds, and Queen who mothers, but the Formians are in many ways alien in mindset, and their gods moreso, since they're embodiments of caste-archetypes rather than specific mortals. The worker and warrior castes aren't even sophont - which has caused problems, when the worker-god turns it's eyes to humanoids, because you can't treat a human farmer the way you'd treat something with less agency than an ox." 

"So a god's domain is somewhat flexible, and They get stronger if Their domain is relevant to mortal affairs, even if They arrange that by adding a new poetic meaning to Their domain?

Is it common to have religious orders devoted to multiple gods, say Forge, Void, and Civilization? Is there organized opposition to the pantheon, or other groups of gods that work together?"

It looks like Asmodeus isn't here, at least. The orcs and elves were simply optimized for their work, and not, say, in constant emotional torment, or dependent on a food that only their masters could provide, or instinctively terrified of freedom.

"You see the sharpest changes in a domain's precise shape when a new person claims the domain - the current Death-by-Disease is pro-medicine, the last one was pro-plague. So they had very different infrastructure set up, different interpretations of and uses for the same fundamental building block of reality. But yes, domains can change over time. There's a lot of pushing and shoving over contested teritory in the long run - there are at least four gods who consider childbirth to be a thing of thiers, for example. The precise mechaisms of divine strength are largely opaque but you seem roughly correct to say that that's one factor. 

Religious orders devoted to multiple gods aren't unheard of, especially when it's because they're focusing on a point of overlap rather than cherrypicking doctrine, and if the gods in question like each other. The most common example would be the dwarf worship of Soil and Metal as a pair. Apart from the 35 legitimate gods of the pantheon, the only other major groups were the drow coterie and the formian gods, and the former is largely collapsed without its leader - torture especially was not able to maintain the social dictates of his core power-base without a lot of social engineering he couldn't sustain alone." 

"So it will be hard to make a cult of Marra, at least one with a comprehensive divine connection, although I suppose I could make cult of Forge that happens to have other Marran practices... Are the mortal followers of Ambition, Forge, Hearth, Void, or Civilization likely to object to new groups that worship their gods with a different focus?

If Death-by-Disease is opposed to disease, there's a lot of flexibility! Is Torture weak enough to be overthrown? A focus on torture for the purpose of making people awesome and vain and lawful would be pretty cool.

- Back up. How should I relate to the gods? In Pharasma's Creation, souls are made, live a mortal life, are judged and sent to a fitting afterlife, and become outsiders like me. Only mortals can be chosen by gods for a special connection, although some outsiders naturally have a bit of a divine connection - I don't. Should I still be considering myself as an outsider now, or simply an unusual magical creature? Would it be easier for me to usurp Torture, or for me to train a mortal to do so, or recruit this universe's equivalent of an outsider? At home, it's straightforward for outsiders to ascend to godhood, but very difficult, while mortals have risky idiosyncratic methods."

"Civilization's cults are in the middle of a centuries-brewing theological civil war about what parts of civilization are the salient ones to be supporting and I suspect they wouldn't enjoy further wildcards. ... Honestly, better than even odds they attack you sometime in the next decade if you're still in this city, we're a plausible target for conquest by the Lord of Light and his empire. Forge will expect you to be good at making things if you want to follow him. Hearth's following tends to be oriented to the local culture. Formal Void-cults are few and often in isolated places, I don't know what might provoke them to act." 

"Torture is absolutely on the weaker and more vulnerable side as far as gods go and 'suffering instils virtue and discipline if correctly aimed' is essentially a summary of why his priests endorse being tortured as well as torturing. That said I would like to encourage you to follow some path that does not involve becoming a god of torture, because I do not think even a notionally-benevolent god is going to make the world a better place if they're doing it by torturing people." He's genuinely pretty concerned about this, though not quite as much as his facial expressions about it might imply. 

"Ah. I can help clarify a few points here. In this world, souls grow as living things grow and strive, from the meanest mold to the greatest dragon. One way this can happen is as part of the mundane process of growth, but souls - especially the souls of mortal humanoids, can also grow as they experience risk and achievement. When we die, our souls fall in a direction orthogonal to the earthly ones into a space where, in ages past, they dissolved into homogenous soulstuff. The god Firmament invented godhood as an intermediate step in creating the toolset that he needed to instead divert dead souls to his afterlives - the firmament central to his domain is specifically the homogenous soulstuff and more generally the substance of worlds like afterlives or fey-realms that run on the logic of soulstuff rather than the logic of matter. Outsiders are, as you say, the people in the afterlives, their bodies composed wholly of soulstuff, unlike the balanced harmony of mortals or the tainted improvisation of the fey. Though we normally distinguish between petitioners, who are just their own soulstuff give or take the damage from the death process, and other outsiders, who have absorbed the substance of their afterlife to become more than they were at the cost of parts of them not related to that ideal. You haven't described how you're structured on a spiritual level, so I can't say if that applies to you. Nothing good ever comes of trying to create epic-grade pawns to manipulate - that sort of luck and genius can't be reliably instilled and having a soul of that level of power naturally comes with great ability to resist manipulation, so they will most likely turn on you, or simply transcend you. If someone other than you bears the risks of ascending, then someone else will also have the power. As far as the differences between ascending for mortals and for outsiders - outsiders have another path to becoming an Imperial Power other than godhood, and many find it easier to become idle or safe in ways which preclude accruing the power needed to win conflicts with gods - and don't doubt, you're hardly the sort of legendary once in a generation epic hero who could actually plan a *campaign* to become a god, you need to be miles stronger to manage that. So very few outsiders become gods, so it goes. Mortals, who burn bright and grow fast and then take their rest, or a higher path of their duty, in the afterlives if they fail, are much more common." 

"Civilization doesn't guide their followers to Their preferred interpretation?"

Would shaping people according to Marra count for Forge? Sounds like no.

Torture already sounds pretty cool, actually. "What particular sorts of virtue and discipline does Torture or His priests encourage? Is there a church of Torture near here? Is it dangerous for me to approach with thoughts of overthrowing Him in my mind?"

Even mold has a soul, this universe is so bountiful! "Your description of outsiders and petitioners sounds very similar to what I'm used to, as does souls getting stronger. I'm not in a hurry to gain power; I'm not going to die of age, as far as I know.

What kinds of outsiders do petitioners become?" If she's not going to ascend for a while, if ever, her best goal might be to steer people towards her preferred afterlife, even if the mortal actions look contrary to Marra.

"There is politics involved - the theology is tied up in various national and imperial mandates, I think. You'd have to ask someone who pays more attention to contemporary geopolitics for details." 

"Torture mostly encourages obedience to the existing social hierarchy, with a thin veil over that of pragmatic martial and personal discipline. His priests are mutilated and tortured to prove their faithfulness. He lacks influence outside drow states, which we should be thankful we are not in one of, and so he would have no local true temple, though I would not be surprised if immigrants had constructed one or more shrines to him somewhere. Gods sometimes have some ability to detect hostile intent around their temples, but only very rarely does it apply to such abstract plans as opposed to immediate attempts at looting or harming followers. After all, what concern does a fisherman have for the possibility that minnows wish to usurp their ship? It is idle fantasy for nearly everyone at your power level or mine." 

"Not being in a hurry to gain power is the key impairment, yes. Death comes swiftly even to those ageless if they seek true power - few adventurers die in their beds." 

"The species of outsiders are more varied and numerous than the species of adventurers - to describe even the most common sorts would leave us here all day and the uncommon sorts all year, let alone true obscurities. The common theme is that you are growing in power by absorbing the nature of the afterlife in which you dwell, allowing it to bolster and replace your selfness, drowning you own distinctions and filling in your weakness with a purer self. One in the Mire who saw their sword-arts as thier best path to power might cut away ever aspect of themselves not used for swordplay to become a Cursed Blade, while one in the Shining City might become an angel devoted to the form of kindness they most enjoyed in life. As in all things, variation is the rule." 

Obedience to the existing social hierarchy, whatever it is? Hierarchies can be Good or Evil, Lawful or Chaotic, feudal or tyrannical or hardly enforced at all... But Kireh can set up cult that's Evil and Lawful and feudal.

"The priests - the people whose faith is not in question - are the ones need who prove it? Does Torture like that, or is it something the priests came up with to impress each other?" Ick, mortal status drives. "Overall Torture seems like a god I could profitably deal with, but not one I would devote myself to. I am utterly opposed to all forms of mutilation, physical or psychological." Gofiere marrenai are sometimes made out of pieces of souls, but it's the best option for some petitioners in a world where all outsiders lose most of themselves.

"Is there a list of afterlives and outsider types, or an expert I could hire to search for the type of outsider I prefer people to become, once I have some money? Is it possible to create new kinds of outsiders just by shaping souls towards a different core? Are souls shaped by gods and their vassals at all - it sounds like souls shape themselves without external guidance? Do gods care about the afterlives?

To be clear, if I traveled to an afterlife, I expect that nothing would happen to me, or that the nature of the plane would damage me. But I would not change into a different type of outsider, and would not grow in power since I am already a 'finished' outsider, fully soaked with infernal essence?"

"Devotion isn't a binary thing. You can always have more of it. Torture is not a good god to try and deal with. Are you aware that torture generally has an effect on the mind not unlike mutilation? Torture-Acolytes say this is a good thing but I'm fairly confident they're wrong." 

"Many scholars have spent their lives compiling such encyclopedias at varying points on the readability/specificity tradeoff. You should be able to find one at a library - the Order of Edification might even have one available to read for free in their public library. If not for free, certainly in the outer library. They, or another one of the adventurer's guilds, will have many scholars who can be hired for that sort of research work." 

"New kinds of outsiders are created all the time, for varying definition of new, in such a way, yes. Gods can shape souls if those souls are suitably vulnerable to this. It's a short-cut on actually studying whatever soul-shaping you'd normally do to get those powers, mostly. Understanding doesn't like it. But some gods consider, for example, granting healing skills to someone in a small town with no master-apprentice line of healers to be of sufficient use to bypass the distaste and expense, and apparently shaping souls to emulate your own nature and powerset on a mortal scale is - a very simple intuitive action, if you are an Imperial Power, so many lesser Imperial Powers bargain with would-be servants for power delivered in this way. Gods have lots of opinions about afterlives - many have private realms, or staging grounds, or similar, within the afterlives. The engines of divinity were first built as an intermediate stage of the process of constructing the afterlives, so many things relating to the afterlives are easy for gods. Finally, there is a process whereby weaker outsiders become stronger ones, while it is opaque to me, and I see no reason why it would not function for you."

"It generally mutilates the mind? ...I suppose that's true in my world, even not counting Hell. But you can avoid that with sufficient mind-reading, sufficient practice and occasional mind-reading, or sufficiently prepared subjects in a controlled context. For example, I will not be harmed by punishment from my superiors, because I know they will calibrate it to correct my mistakes and no further, and will not do permanent damage. I'm not afraid of their whims, because they're Lawful and bound by their duties to their subordinates.

At one point, I was afraid of lying or breaking rules. Now, I am not afraid. I simply cannot lie or abandon my duties. I suppose you might call that mutilation, if you're Chaotic, but I am glad to be shaped to be reliable."

"Wait, what's a priest, then? I assumed it meant a person who is given powers by their god, but that's something different?"

"I think most people would consider you pretty severly harmed by the process of achieving that mindset even if I assume that you're correct in your self-assesment on the matter, which, taking the outside view, you almost certainly are not. You yourself described your superiors as evil - why would you trust them with that amount of power over you? It's perfectly possible to do tremendous harm without lying or breaking rules, even if the rules were designed for harm minimisation and it really doesn't sound like they were." 

(It might be noticable, here, that the abbott is thinking of her as the victim of an abusive cult, and is responding to this with the best toolkit he has short of offering somewhere to stay which isn't a cult lair, which doesn't seem like it would help in this case, which is honest discussion about the cult's ideals and why you should do other things with your life. This has worked for him as many as several times in the past, and if people need unconditional comfort they should go to another temple.) 

"There isn't a precise definition of priest, or rather, it's a word refering to a wide array of titles, many of which are precisely granted and defined by relavent religious institutions, and many of which aren't. I'd say, it broadly speaking means someone who is deeply involved with the religious life of thier community, or someone who is professionally a member of a religious organisation, or someone who has dedicated thier life to a god in some other way. The details vary greatly. They often have blessings, but they just as often don't. Sometimes those blessings are predictable, and just as often they aren't. Some warlocks - people shaped by a greater power rather than thier own agency - are priests, but it's common to think of them as theological mercenaries at best, and the process is clearly distinguished from blessings in all cases. Especially since there are entities other than gods which can make warlocks."