"It's an obvious experiment so I assume someone must have tried it. And some new clerics probably aren't sure in the first moment... unless every new cleric binds to whichever symbol is closest, or to the one they happen to try first, but again I expect it would have been noticed if no clerics ever failed to use a symbol on their first try if they weren't sure." Even confirmation bias has its limits. "That leaves me with two questions. First, how do the churches know or verify what their gods want, and the rest of their theology? What are they right or wrong about? Second, and separately, what do the gods actually do besides empower people they like? Do they - directly affect what their clerics or anyone else thinks and does, do they intervene in other big important ways... How important are the gods, separate from their churches, to people living here, on a scale of 'they can safely be ignored until you die' to 'they run this world for their amusement'?"

"I believe that unless you wind up in a fuckty sort of regime in a way this one is not, and unless you want to be a cleric, they can be safely ignored until you die, with of course the caveat that once you die your alignment matters a lot and most people are taking cues on how to manage that from some sort of religion pick-and-mix instead of trying to derive it all from first principles even though deriving it from first principles is cooler. I think for big important questions they use Commune spells to just directly ask, that's probably not happening daily but it's just fifth circle it's not a Miracle. For littler more cultural questions the selection of clerics by their - attitudes, personalities - can do a lot. When you say 'what are they right or wrong about' I do not know if you mean 'what do they have ungarbled communication from their god about' or 'what things are gods and churches objectively accurate about, presumably according to you, Belmarniss, arbiter of pure truth'. I think it is not standard for gods to go around mind-controlling their clerics but they might give them nudges or visions or dreams or some shit like that sometimes at key moments."

Tanya already knows what happens to her when she dies. Or, well, she doesn't really, in the sense that she might luck out and be handled by someone other than Being X and be sent off to a proper afterlife this time, but given how vindictive he is she's not holding her breath. And she doesn't actually know what Being X can or will do to her if he does see her again. One might say Tanya knows nothing, but her alignment (if she were to assign herself one) is clearly lawful, either neutral or good depending on how you view her volunteering for army service and being an exemplary soldier, and very very firmly aligned against Being X getting her to do anything he wants.

"If they can ask their gods questions directly, then I don't understand why you didn't bring that up right away? It seems like it should resolve doctrinal questions, if they do it consistently and get consistent answers in return. I don't know how expensive a fifth circle spell is but presumably it's worth it to check important beliefs and policies, let alone to avoid a schism?" Or it would be, if believers were rational... "Well, you've convinced me that gods are probably granting the spells and also guiding their churches to some degree, if they care to do so. Of course some beliefs and practices could stick around because the god simply doesn't care either way. If this is all true, I don't really know how the - system works and I shouldn't assume it's like Earth's in any particular." She nods to herself. "I'll approach it with an open mind."

Being able to ask gods questions would be enormously useful if only you could trust the answers. Tanya does not particularly trust the answers about things mortals can't verify independently. But if the beings being worshipped as gods here really are guiding their churches, then at least it's possible to know what they want people to do and to believe, what they reward and punish. Tanya doesn't have to like it to admit that legibility is usually a good thing.

"We've talked about Communes before and you didn't seem impressed, I don't see why it suddenly came to be impressive. Aroden might be a useful control for how much it matters to people that the god be doing stuff, since he's dead. I haven't seen much of a vestigial Arodenite church and he was big here."

They did? Tanya tries to remember. "I think back then I didn't know gods were empowering cleric spells, so there was no reason to assume anyone or anything in particular was answering the questions. The local spells sometimes seem like they're getting information from nowhere, like the translation ones. I assume it comes from somewhere but I don't know where."

"Aroden is the god who died? His church not continuing without him is a good sign. And yes, you're absolutely right that that's a good control case. I knew the faith was on the wane but I didn't know he died until just now. ...I suppose I should ask how that happened, although I expect we have only the other gods' word to go on." Could she arrange for Being X to die Tanya is a civilian and, separately, a sane person.

"My understanding is that he was going to show up and rule Cheliax in his own person from the Material and this went terribly wrong. Even downstairs everyone noticed that prophecy spells stopped working. I think it also had something to do with the Worldwound opening but that could just be similar timing on a coincidence."

"Are prophecy spells the ones that ask gods about things? Why would they stop working if Aroden died?"

"No, ones that just ask gods about things work fine, Commune still works, Augury is the discount version and works, there used to be spells that just straight up predicted the future and they had countermeasures but outside of those they worked, and they've stopped."

"I don't understand how a spell - or any mechanism - can predict the future, in full generality. I believe you," because Tanya is capable of noticing that when she disbelieves Belmarniss about Golarion she turns out to be wrong more often than not, "but I don't understand how it can work or what it would look like. But if there was something like that, why would it then stop working? Doesn't that imply that the spell wasn't making predictions all by itself, that it was querying someone - or something - which has stopped responding?" Like Aroden, for instance?

"I haven't studied these because they were no longer functioning at the time I started working on magic. My great-aunt sometimes said that the one she had - qua sorcery, so she didn't know the underlying math at all - felt like she was echolocating into the future. She does have a weird spell for echolocation so maybe that was just an intuitive analogy for her."

"...but the future isn't determined, right?"

"There were countermeasures! You couldn't rely on them if you had enemies who had prophecy-fouling abilities. And even without that the spells would've been pretty useless if you couldn't change plans in response to them, also."

This is honestly making Tanya's head spin a bit. "If you're sure they no longer work then I guess I won't try to understand how they did." This world contains so much that is frankly bullshit beyond her present understanding. Belmarniss is absolutely right that Tanya should be more humble. Some of the things she's telling her are probably false or exaggerated, but it's not as if Tanya can figure out which ones! Tanya really should rethink her position here and process everything she's been told in the past half hour.

So: there are beings (or one being masquerading as many) regularly empowering people with spells, and being worshipped as gods. Tanya thinks Belmarniss mentioned at some point that there are more clerics than wizards? That implies societal manipulation on a truly massive scale, but it leaves Tanya in the dark about what it might be for.

Well, does she have to concern herself with it? What does Tanya want out of life? Security, comfort, appreciation, making a contribution to society in an expected and encouraged way. Not living somewhere that offends her and paying taxes towards it, even if she personally is in a privileged position, but she won't risk her safety over that. What does any of that have to do with religions and gods?

Belmarniss said you can safely ignore gods (if not, presumably, their clerics) until you die. Belmarniss believes in nine afterlives, with people sorted according to how lawful and prosocial they were in life. Tanya... doesn't actually know that she's wrong? Being X said a lot of nonsense, which means she can't figure out the afterlives (if any) based on that, but if the gods here are telling people something, then - well, obviously they could be lying. Getting people to do you say in order to reach Heaven isn't exactly a novel idea. On the other hand, it's not as if Tanya is opposed to being lawful and prosocial, so she should hear out what they have to say. She'll visit Shelyn's church tomorrow, and maybe Abadar's again.

...getting back to what Tanya wants out of life, though, she still needs an income. Belmarniss suggested she might become (ugh) a bounty-hunter, that she be willing to kill at least specific people on the say-so of local officials if those people are credibly accused of capital crimes and present an ongoing danger to the public. The problem here is that Tanya really doesn't trust the local officials to convicting the right non-human in absentia! They seem more likely to be the kind of people who can't even tell nonhumans apart! If there's clearly just one person of an unusual species in a region, who arrived recently and definitely killed some people, that might be the the ideal case but it doesn't sound very likely to come up. Belmarniss said that churches sometimes coordinate things that are truly in everyone's interests, so that's another thing to ask them when she visits. 

They have an uneventful night in the inn, and in the morning Belmarniss prepares spells including her Ancestral Regression and they can go back to the library to be Aura Sighted along with anyone else who heard this was happening in time to come stand in it.

Tanya is curious if she can detect the spell reacting to different people in ways that match the reported outcomes!

Looks like no.

Belmarniss gets reported on first: "Chaotic Good, fancy that!" says the Nethysian.

"Oh cool, I'm not too purple for that, love to hear it."

"Now go on, do the thing -"

"Sure, sure. Ancestral Regression."

"And it's gone, like you're neutral - I'd really love to copy that out and see if it can be adapted."

"I'll need to think about that."

"Sure, sure - okay, everybody else, we've got a few minutes on this -" He squints at Tanya.

Tanya can see the new magic aura around Belmarniss (and records it in her orb). She looks palette-swapped recolored, for lack of a better term? Not really different beyond that. It's not just an illusion, of course, it masks her from alignment detection spells and maybe does other things too. A (regrettably) useful spell.

It's not very surprising, in retrospect, that Belmarniss is 'chaotic'. She hasn't grown up in a society that encourages or rewards lawfulness. But she is clearly prosocial and Tanya has every confidence that if she ever settles down in a society worthy of her talents she'll be lawful too.

"Lawful Evil," the Nethysian tells her neutrally. (A couple of the people waiting to get stared at wince.)

...she what?

Tanya swallows down the instinctive protest. It may still be a con, but she doesn't think it's being run by the caster in front of her.

"Does the spell give you any other information?" she asks the Nethysian.

(Tanya is not antisocial! She is extremely obedient and lawful! She put her life on the line defending society!!! Sure, she might not have an empathetic emotional instinct for being prosocial, but don't her actions count for anything?!)

"Moderate strength aura? And your object doesn't have an alignment aura. That's all I get," he shrugs.

Next person: "Still don't detect, better luck next time."

Next person: "Neutral Good."

Next person: "Lawful Netural."

Next person: "Nothing, at this point I suspect you're just actually neutral..."

Is she the only 'evil' one here probably you wouldn't accuse a local community member, let alone an acquaintance, of being 'evil' in public? You'd probably let them know afterwards in private that they should go around with a spell like Belmarniss's? Although the spell is detectable, so anyone seen wearing it is probably treated presumptively as evil and/or chaotic - not important right now -

When she gets a moment in private with Belmarniss: "I have to say I'm surprised by this, and - unsure about the implications."

"I imagine you just, like, got up to some sketchy stuff while you were doing war things, perhaps under orders? I don't know what-all you were doing exactly."

(Somebody else, a young man, does get a "Neutral Evil" reading, and droops.)

"I don't know what that means. I followed orders and the laws of war. I defended my country and my fellow soldiers... I'm sorry, I shouldn't be bothering you," a certified-prosocial civilian deprived of law and order, "with that part. What does it materially affect now? Are people going to treat me differently on account of it?" Is Belmarniss going to treat her differently? She seems very easy-going, but she can be hard to read.

"Only if they detect you! Which most people do not go around doing. Paladins will notice, they get at-will Detect Evil, but they have to be Lawful so they probably can't just attack you in the street about it. They might try to... provide you with spiritual counseling?"