"Iomedae could've come up with some other way to make the Wardstones work that wouldn't have had the same issue? Lastwall could have found a way to close the Worldwound earlier? I'm not sure how hard either of those would've been."

It seems difficult to assess whether the former would have been possible given that he doesn't know how the Wardstones work, but it would obviously be horribly rude to press her on it.

"I guess technically if Seelah or Lann already knew exactly how to fix the Wardstone, or if they had already done a bunch of adventuring so they were strong enough to just fight off all the demons without a miracle, that would've also helped?" Is he going to think she's calling Seelah and Lann weak? "—But that doesn't really count, both of them did a great job, it's just that Lann had only just been picked as a priest. ...I guess it might've technically been possible for Iomedae to just give them some extra circles."

"Was there anything else, or did you want to share your suggestions for how we could increase recruitment?"

"I think that's everything, but I'll let you know if I think of anything else that I forgot." Pause.

"Lastwall rightly forbids slavery, but Mendev has not chosen to follow her example in this matter. In Andoran, there are no shortage of adventurers who were raised in bondage, and they are no less courageous than you or I. If Mendev were to follow Lastwall's example, I'm sure that many among them would gladly volunteer." (And also slavery would be illegal.)

Lastwall would in fact also prefer that Mendev abolish slavery, but this is not a domain in which Mendev is particularly inclined to listen to them.

(The Crusade's diplomatic staff would really prefer she drop the issue! It's not nearly as bad as how she keeps saying things that could be interpreted as implying she's opposed to the traditional privileges enjoyed by Mendev's nobility, but it's definitely somewhat hampering their ability to raise funds from Mendev's elite!)

(If they want her to stop telling people that Mendev should abolish slavery, they can abolish slavery, problem solved.)

"So then — to hear people talk, Crusader's Fort gets more volunteers than just about anywhere at the Worldwound. And then, before the Crusade, Kenabres got the most of anywhere in Mendev — I don't know if people've been exaggerating, but I've heard stories of forts that didn't even have anyone who could channel positive. I don't know whether you could've just asked people at Crusader's to go somewhere else, but there's people who died because no one who was running around helping people after Deskari's attack had Fly, and that's before getting into other forts."

(...Possibly she should ask some of the Crusade clerics if they'd rather go to some other fort for the winter? It's not like Drezen actually needs this many channels, and they're not going to have as much to do with the army once winter comes. Drezen's kind of far from the rest of the forts, though, they'd need... some kind of escort? Her party was travelling around the Wound at third circle but most of their clerics aren't at third. And that's if the stories she's heard are true, which she's really got no idea about.)

His understanding is that Lastwall has proposed some form of this (albeit with somewhat more understanding of geopolitical considerations) and Mendev has, understandably, decided that they would prefer not to deal with the sort of nonsense that Crusader's has to put up with. If they genuinely have forts without any clerical support, it might be worth inquiring again? Mendev hates anything that seems like Lastwall trying to interfere with their politics, but they're generally fairly willing to accept Lastwall providing support to Mendev's Worldwound forts.

Does she actually want to pick the next fight — yes, obviously she does, that was a stupid question. Is it actually a good idea to pick it — well, if he's even slightly reasonable the worst that happens is that he just doesn't listen, but she's not sure if he is. He... hasn't seemed to be getting upset when she's pointed out other things she thinks Lastwall is doing wrong? And... probably even if he decides she's just being selfish or something, he's not going to decide that everything else she's said is also because she's being selfish, it's not like she's ever been a Mendevian slave.

"It also seems to me like Lastwall could get a lot more priests to help with its forts if it had fewer laws against Calistrians. Mendev's got plenty of people who've been hurt very badly by the demons, who've lost parents or siblings or children or friends to them, and sometimes Calistria sees their desire to avenge the wrongs the demons have done and gives them the power to do that. Some of them marched with us to Drezen, and we're lucky to have them. And I don't think Lastwall's got nearly as many people who've been personally hurt by the demons, but I'm sure you've got some, and most of them are probably too Lawful for her but I doubt it's all of them."

...The problem is that Calistrians frequently do extrajudicial murder. Even those who don't often engage in deeply imprudent sexual relationships, and frequently bear children outside of wedlock. The Knight-Commander is not actually a counter-example here, given that she literally confessed in this very conversation to extrajudicial murder (admittedly of a sort that could have been avoided if Cheliax decided to emulate Lastwall's code of laws, not that it ever would).

"—Empowered Calistrians are permitted to enlist at Crusader's Fort," he says, though he's mostly been trying not to interrupt her, because it does seem like a rather material factual error.

"...sure, if they don't mind never being allowed back home."

They could always renounce her when they've finished their period of service — the Knight-Commander is obviously not going to find that convincing.

If they could somehow promote specifically and exclusively forms of Calistrianism devoted to vengeance against demons it would probably be worth it — in principle they could effectively function like a more Chaotic, more Evil, less disciplined, worse-at-prioritization variety of Ragathielites — but he can't actually see a way to get only those forms of Calistrianism.

Okay, this isn't making things obviously worse but it also isn't working.

"...If you'd rather, I could make an argument from what I think Iomedae would've done." Mostly she doesn't, on account of how people should do things because they're the right thing to do and not because they're what Iomedae would have done, but he is an Iomedaean and sometimes they care more about that.

(She would not make this argument to someone whose moral reasoning she respected but she's presuming his suspect until he shows otherwise.)

"...I admit I am curious to hear your analysis." It's not like Iomedae is particularly known for working with Calistrians! If she wanted her country's laws to be more favorable to them, she could have set it up like that in the first place!

"Right, so, have you read the Acts of Iomedae?"

Why do people keep asking him that — probably because the Mendevian understanding of Iomedae apparently includes 'blood sacrifice to gain her favor'. "I have."

"There's a section of the Acts where Iomedae talks about going to the high priestess of Sarenrae for aid, and — it was honestly really confusing the first time I read it, because she was treating it like the sort of thing she needed to justify, and it seemed like a pretty normal thing to do. But apparently it was really controversial at the time, because Taldor and Qadira kept getting into wars, and Qadira was Sarenrae's country, so people in Taldor didn't trust her, and some of them would've been really upset if she hadn't explained." 

(In slight fairness, Qadira really sucks. A country run by Calistrians would definitely still have some problems, she's not saying it would be a good idea, but at least slavery would definitely be illegal! But Taldor's kind of ridiculous about it, supposedly there were several decades when not only was it illegal to be a Sarenrite but it was illegal to have an uncensored copy of the Acts because it was too favorable to Sarenrae.) 

"But even though a lot of people in Taldor hated Qadira and hated Sarenrae, Iomedae was still willing to ask for the high priestess's help when she needed it. Because — just because Taldor didn't like her, or her priests sometimes broke the law in Taldor, that didn't mean Sarenrae was Evil, or working against them, or that working with her was going to somehow let Sarenrites destroy Taldor. Of course there are limits, even if a demon lord hates Deskari we still wouldn't take their priests" (not that Lastwall sees any issue working with Hell to hold the northern border), "but — Calistria's not Evil. You and me and the Lastfolk whose hearts cry out for vengeance against the demons are all on the same side against the Abyss, and there's no sense in exiling them because you're afraid of what they might do."

And, you know, maybe Lastwall could send the Crusade literally any troops whatsoever. She wasn't really annoyed about that before the conversation but now she kind of is. (If they've decided everything they were already doing is too important to lift a finger to help, it's not like she expected better from them, but if they don't want to send troops because she's not a perfect little Lawful Iomedaean paladin they'll have it coming if the Crusade fails.)

(The fact that she's a Calistrian was probably a factor, but he suspects that a larger factor is that his commanding officers expected that the Crusade was doomed. ...It may be worth taking some time to assess that, while he's already here, given that they did at least manage to retake Drezen.)

"—It seems to me that if the Goddess wished to endorse a different legal structure surrounding Calistrianism, she could have simply done so?" 

There's something just slightly different about the way she's smiling at him. "It is our right-by-birth and our destiny to surpass our gods."

That doesn't actually make sense in context! If she's making an argument about what the Goddess would have done it can't rely on needing to surpass her! He will dutifully note the Knight-Commander's position but he doesn't find it especially convincing.

...It bothers him kind of an unreasonable amount that she misquoted the line. It's 'birthright', not 'right by birth', and she skipped the entire part about surpassing their fathers.

Well, her father was an Asmodean wizard that she never even met, it's not like it's hard to do better than that.

Also the version she read had been sort-of-translated out of archaic Taldane, 'right-by-birth' is correct for the version she was working from.

"Did you have any other suggestions for recruitment?"

"There's some parts of the Worldwound treaty that could've been written differently but it's not like you can change them now. I think that's it — no, wait, I remembered something else. I don't know exactly how you decide who to let into the crusader college in Lastwall, but Irabeth tried to study there and you wouldn't let her. And it'd be sort of weird if she was the only person who got turned away without a good reason, and probably some of them decided to go do other things rather than be crusaders, but I don't know for sure."