And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.

Bish, I'm the Primate of Varisia.

he-will-orn-your-reebs

Most High Arch Megapope of Korvosa, Primate of Varisia

Can you find a single other empowered Caydenite who recognizes the claim?

beer & pretzels

Are you saying that when I can, you will too?

he-will-orn-your-reebs

Watch Sergeant Cressida Kroft

Reebs will never ever say that and if it ever looks like he has, beware the doppelganger.

drearily-disrated

Compromise candidate: Arbiter Zenderholm.

he-will-orn-your-reebs

Watch Sergeant Cressida Kroft

That isn't proposing a compromise, that's putting an Abadaran in charge of everything.

drearily-disrated

You say po-tay-to, I say po-tah-to.

little-Cheliax

Zenderholm is happy to preside over the polytheistic religious revival. Which faiths will have a cleric in attendance?

little-Cheliax

Most High Arch Megapope of Korvosa, Primate of Varisia

Aforementioned new priests of Iomedae, Erastil, Torag, Alseta, Nethys, Ssila'meshnik, Baalzebul, Mammon, and Mephistopheles, plus the preexisting priests of Abadar, Asmodeus, Pharasma, Sarenrae,

beer & pretzels

Cayden Cailean,

Lyvina Mayyad

exponential-wizard

second circle cleric of Gorum

Ragathiel,

what-if-we-weaponize-it

and Gorum.

he-will-orn-your-reebs

Reebs already has three more priests of Asmodeus to incorporate into his hierarchy, and three priests of the Archdevils.

Most of them he knows, or knows by reputation; diabolists are a subset of Korvosans. The others, he's forming an impression of.

Some seem lawless, others clawless, or simple and brutish, or addicted to complexity. Others seem fine, but will you forgive him if he's waiting with them for the other shoe to drop? They are not, on the whole, diabolists of the highest possible quality.

Reebs could be charitable and presume that as Asmodeus, being great and ancient, has many facets, if His newly chosen understand Asmodeus in a different way than the Archbishop of Varisia does, their understanding may be no less an accurate one: for is it not so that in the days of Ihys, before the First Murder, even gods were ignorant fools? The King of Hell has a long memory; masked by his more central domains - as the flame of a candle is masked by the noonday sun - perhaps Asmodeus retains aspects of gullibility, naive leniency, and wretched incompetence: and perhaps these are the domains of His new priests.

Or perhaps Asmodeus can't afford the luxury of being selective.

(It's a mite hard to shake the first foolish impulse that Asmodeus is making a mistake; for his own part, Reebs has never been afford the luxury of casting a very wide net - his place and his faith's in the country is not so secure that he couldn't damage it by dredging up reefclaws along with the day's catch. But while he's sure even Asmodeus is as yet incapable of perfect play, surely He doesn't make mistakes where Reebs can see them.)

he-will-orn-your-reebs

By the standards of mortals, the Archbishop is well-initiated in the secrets of the divine. It's observed that gods are eagerest to select people who are in tune with their domains and mode of thinking, and thought that such people take less strain for gods to empower - the results of divinations support this, as does circumstantial evidence: gods choose people who are philosophically better in tune with Them over people who would better serve Their interests, They often wait for a spiritual experience which brings someone closer in tune with their god than they typically are, rather than selecting those they eventually will as soon as possible to maximize the amount of time they have with their powers. If Asmodeus is choosing as clerics people who don't very much grok Asmodeanism, He's paying more for less.

Asmodeus is the most powerful of the gods, and exerts Himself more on Golarion than others - but even He must conserve his strength. That He exerts himself here, means He can't elsewhere. So why on the face of the Worldeater's Cage is He doing it?

Nor does He act alone. A secret god crawls out of the woodwork and gives Cressida Kroft a secret charge, and then twenty empowered priests in the last hour. You can't accuse Archbishop Ornher Reebs of lacking national sentiment - while he wasn't born in the city, he has in it the faith of a convert -, but is the shadow plague not a global issue? Why so much divine attention on at what's left of Korvosa?

Were the clerics brought on by Otolmens' own intervention? What's the implication - that Otolmens raised the ante and now others scramble to match it? This theory makes nothing less mysterious - what did Otolmens see? (And which of the gods are with Otolmens, and which are against?)

These things are happening above Reebs's head.

What he can do, is give the friendly gods more options.

he-will-orn-your-reebs

Most think of clerics as useful for their magic powers, and the Vault would surely benefit from them, but that's not Reebs's primary aim or concern. And if it were, there would be no urgency to it; there are many things to prioritize. But he's doing gods' work, and it's best to be prompt - They might need time to execute, or there might be windows of opportunity which are closing for Them. No, Reebs cares hardly at all about the magic powers clerics come with. But the gods can act on what They can see, and the easier They can see, the easier They can act, and They seem inclined to act, and They can most easily see Their Chosen. Perhaps if They have more and more varied eyes in the Vault - more eyes to see through, more prayers to hear, more perspectives, more angles - They'll notice other places that They can intervene.

he-will-orn-your-reebs

Asmodeus is chief among the gods both in Creation and in Reebs's priorities, of course, and so he's trying to plan out what sermon to give when it's his turn to speak. He doesn't consider himself to be an amazing public speaker; he wasn't made Archbishop of Varisia for his spectacular oratory, he was made Archbishop of Varisia for first killing enough demons and dissidents to make sixth-circle and second playing the political game in Egorian well enough to threaten certain others without playing it well enough they couldn't be rid of him.

Different priests of Asmodeus best understand different facets of their god, and Reebs worships at the altar of Asmodean Trickery. But he's never been able to properly explain what he's seen to anyone else - how Asmodean trickery is broader than Mephistopheleanism, encompasses it but isn't limited to it, how not only is it not at odds with Asmodean tyranny but is in fact the same face of the same coin - or even, the trickery is broader than the tyranny and encompasses that too - and at any rate preaching about how he worships the god of deceit and exact words wouldn't likely endear himself and diabolism to Korvosa. Especially when he doesn't know how to convey it in a way that people who don't already understand will begin to. It's probably better to give the sermon about tyranny...?

Freedom comes at a price.

That price is not virtue.

It is not, as Sarenrae teaches, the price of long suffering.

Nor even is it courage, as the Caydenite would have it.

The price of freedom is strength.

And it is an happy price to pay.

If people hear it and are moved, perhaps in a moment of weakness, to open themself to Asmodeus - a cleric must be willing - then Asmodeus could choose the most useful from among them... conditional on their actually being sufficiently attuned to him in that moment. Which, maybe they won't be, because Reebs is giving a speech that he's heard from others and believes in but which isn't particularly the way he understands his god and how therefore could he know whether he was saying it wrong? Maybe he should try again to explain Asmodean trickery...?

little-Cheliax

One ought test remove disease before they try heal, and Korvosans are both efficient (...within the limitations imposed on them by being all run on one brain...) and also irreverent, so probably what would make the most sense is if each cleric or inquisitor or paladin briefly described what they think is most important to know about their deity, and the mindset they had when encleric'd, and then the whole vault tried praying to that deity simultaneously, and then we just went down the list. We can always try again and at greater length later.

he-will-orn-your-reebs

Reebs won't fight to go first. He's still thinking.

little-Cheliax

I speak to you today not as Lord Valdur Bromathan, but as a simple priest of the Dawnflower. What She teaches is simple:

You are loved.

You can love.

Everyone knew these, before Golarion taught us cruelty and hardness. They can be, at times, hard to remember. We stray from the Dawnflower's light... but Her light pursues us.

Sarenrae loves you. In your darkest hour, still she loves you. In your darkest hour, still Sarenrae hopes for you. Still She prays for you. Still She intercedes for you at the foot of Pharasma's throne. Sarenrae will never, ever, let you down. She will not run away. She will not desert you. Nirvana is for everyone.

I would like everyone to join hands, and to let me lead you in song.

little-Cheliax

Abide with me: fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide!
When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day;
Earth's joys grow dim, its glories pass away;
Change and decay in all around I see:
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

I need Thy presence ev'ry passing hour;
What but Thy grace can foil the tempter's pow'r?
Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness:
Where is death's sting? where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.

little-Cheliax

Sarenrae commands that, as She has loved you, love one another.

That you love one another. By this shall men know that you are Her disciples: if you have love, one to another.

Lay down the burden of resentment, and love even your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you!

Your rewards in this world are Universal Love and Transcendent Joy. Your reward in the next is that this is how we make Nirvana - together.

little-Cheliax