"There's a lot of factors, but one big one is positioning. Gods need worshippers to grow. If they're in an area with fewer mortals, they won't be able to grow as big."

"Huh, I guess that's one way to design a system that will hopefully put good people in power. Well, depending on how easy it is to coerce worship."

"It wasn't designed by anyone. It's just the way the world works."

"Um, maybe, but it could also be that it was designed too far in the past for anyone to remember."

"Theoretically."

"Sorry, I don't mean to offend. It's just the considered opinion of the Institute that of the magic we've observed so far it looks like someone built it rather than it arising naturally. I'm not sure whether that would carryover to this world and its Gods but it's my default hypothesis."

"Might want to keep that one to yourself. Some gods might not take kindly to it."

"I will avoid expressing that opinion then."

"Ellayania doesn't have a problem with it, but it's something to keep in mind if you go touring."

"Yeah, that makes sense. I usually avoid criticising local beliefs about origins stories for their world and such."

"What other ones have you heard about?"

"There's a pretty wide variety, they usually involve some sort of creator deities.  There was this one somewhat polytheist one where there was one creator god who sung other less powerful gods into existence and taught them to sing in turn. None of the gods were in evidence when we visited but there was a music based magic system. Some of their spells were really beautiful."

"Do you have any recordings?"

"Sure, let me play one of the waterwalking spells. Unfortunately, I don't count as a valid caster so it won't do anything but it sounds nice." He gets something out of his backpack and soon there's a quiet contemplative song playing. Ellayania will be able to understand the words that sing about water flowing smoothly and holding together.

"Who counts as a valid caster?"

"With most of the magic systems we've found so far it's mostly heritable with some additional fuzziness where people either unexpectedly are or are not magic users. Idelia follows that rule. Magecrafters, Wanderdeep's empowered, probably don't, one of the magecrafters known to the Institute had a child and they don't have the power."

"Idelia is the songs?"

"It's what they call their world. They call the songs Omecani, the closest translation is 'The Music of Creation.' They sing a lot, even leaving aside the magic music."

"I suppose there are worse ways to run things."

"There certainly are. I wasn't the explorer on site for that one but I've visited. It's a really nice place. It has its problems but everywhere does."

"How often do you find new worlds?"

"Find isn't quite the correct term. We're gradually expanding our sphere of influence and we're trying not to send explorers too far in advance of our ability to offer support. It takes a lot of nearby infrastructure to handle the integration of a new world, and we also have military forces built up around exploration hubs in case we encounter anyone unfriendly. We're just starting to explore your local neighborhood. We know of three other likely candidates with some signs of magic and one other non-magical world with humans and about a hundred worlds that we think might be life-bearing in this area."

"What usually happens when you make contact with a world?"

"Well, usually, the explorer on site has a series of teleports mapped out. We talk with the people we encounter and travel between different areas of the world. Under some circumstances, an explorer will contact local governments and open negotiations but usually that would be left to the survey teams. They have more specialized ambassadors with them."

"How long's the delay between explorer and survey team? I know there's there's a four-day communications lag."