They only probably can't legally attack her on sight for 'being evil'? Joy. (This also underscores why she doesn't want to be taking out bounties for this country!)

"Can you tell me more about paladins, I don't think they've come up before?" Tanya tries her very best to try to convey that all the negative everything she's feeling is not directed at Belmarniss at all. Belmarniss is an excellent person and Tanya is only upset with everyone else whoever designed and runs this place.

"They're sort of like clerics but they do less spellcasting, more hitting stuff with swords. Clerics can be any alignment and any god, paladins only can be Lawful Good and can only belong to a god who could have Lawful Good clerics - so that's Lawful Good gods and also Lawful Neutral or Neutral Good."

...

"And you think that what's stopping these lawful, prosocial people from attacking anyone 'evil' on sight is the law? If that's what it means to be prosocial here, maybe I shouldn't be surprised I don't qualify."

"I've never met a paladin, I could be being unfair to them."

Sigh. "I'm sorry if I sound harsh. I guess this rattled me a bit." Apparently even the opprobrium of a state and people Tanya doesn't respect has the power to move her? What bullshit. She's not Taldane and she doesn't have to accept their judgements.

"The Nethysians evidently don't care, so you could ask them what kind of reception to expect if you wander past a Good church and get squinted at."

"They seemed to me like they cared... But sure, I'll ask them." Why not?

Hello, alignment-detecting Nethysian or a random one if she can't find that one, could you please tell me more about local views on alignments and what I should expect if I go visit the Shelynites or encounter a paladin in the street?

The alignment-detecting one actually wants to go directly from detecting alignments to grilling Belmarniss about Ancestral Regression (apparently in local parlance it's a polymorph spell, not an illusion, including the built-in undetectable alignment effect which would on its own be an abjuration! fascinating!) but there's a library acolyte she can talk to!

"Well, you know, it's relevant to your self-interest, how Pharasma judges you, and it affects what people can trust you to do, but everyone knows that's not perfect. Or, well, I say everyone knows, but when I say 'everyone knows' something I am invariably shocked by the ignorance of the general population. People who don't read, you know. But anyone who knows anything! Anyone who knows anything knows that even if you've had an abortion - that's what people are going to guess, girl your age, though of course it could be lots of things - that doesn't mean you're going to randomly start raising skeletons and torturing slaves and spying for Cheliax and putting fine print into bills of sale and all that. The Shelynites will want to figure out how you can repent of whatever it was and be Good or at least not Evil! They're sweeties. I dated a Shelynite for a while and we're still friends, only ex I ever managed that with, I can introduce you to him if you want the personal touch... paladins are going to be almost all Iomedaeans. Erastil or Shelyn or Abadar could have them but mostly don't, Iomedae's all about paladins, probably because she was one before her ascension! They are not allowed to attack you just for being evil but they don't have to keep it a secret or anything, if they're not satisfied with whatever you tell them and they think you're doing something evil people oughtn't do like having some kind of... sensitive advisory position? They probably wouldn't want you to... marry their relatives? Till you get sorted out. Which you can. They're doing fascinating research in Osirion about how much it costs, in money, because they're Abadarans, to offset one abortion, and it's not a single amount because it depends on how you thought about the conception and the abortion and the donation to a good cause and maybe also which good cause, I think they have a lot of Sarenrites there so that's the control group? but they're narrowing it down!"

Abortions being wrong is an idea with a good pedigree. If fetuses have souls (which sounds rather horrible but how else would it work?) then it's correct that you shouldn't kill them, at least if they aren't immediately recycled into a similar reincarnation.

That a fourteen-year-old's most likely (consequential) act of evil was getting an abortion makes sense, if you completely ignore that she's a mage and a soldier! Tanya honestly expected to get mistaken for an adventurer at this point? She doesn't want people to assume she's a child-murderer and irresponsible enough to get pregnant in the first place! 

(Is aborting a rapist's child evil? That's the repugnant conclusion pro-abortionists like to point to, but the other side isn't wrong that it's not the fetus's fault but that of God.)

In any case she obviously can't repent of aborting a child. How is she supposed to know what to repent of, whatever that even means? Tanya has had enough of confessing her sins for several lifetimes.

Paying money to make up for your 'evil' deeds is another long-standing tradition. She should ask the local Abadarans how that works. Presumably she can't afford it right now, but there is some price it would be rational to pay to stop people judging her.

"Can you tell me more about those other gods? I'm not from around here and I only heard about Abadar, Shelyn and Nethys so far."

"Iomedae is the youngest god known on this planet, only about a thousand years ascended via the Starstone, a magic rock in Absalom that Aroden left behind in the course of his own ascension to let others follow him! In life she was a paladin of Aroden best known for the Shining Crusade waged to contain the dread necromancer Tar-Baphon. Erastil is also Lawful Good and extremely popular, but mostly in the countryside because he's the god of farming and hunting - and also nice traditional family sorts of situations, so he sees some uptake even in the city, but if you go by how many clerics of his are in Cassomir you'll be wrong about how well-loved he is. Sarenrae is a Neutral Good goddess, very similar to Shelyn in many ways but more martial and less artsy, but she's not popular here - not illegal, but people of that general type tend to wind up calling themselves Iomedaeans or Shelynites instead depending on their details, Shelyn if they're more into the redemption and universal love deal and Iomedae if they're more into smiting the undead and fiends and suchlike, because Sarenrae is the patron of Taldor's longstanding rival to the east, Qadira, and in spite of her being Good the Qadirans manage to be an unpleasant lot."

People can become gods? ...by using a magic rock? Tanya files this under 'doubtful claims'; a thousand years is plenty of time for myth-making. What matters is that Iomedae is a god now and that people believe this about her. (And Aroden, it turns out.)

The gods themselves have alignments! She thinks Belmarniss mentioned this, but Tanya didn't fully reexamine this in light of recent revelations. Of course they're all (claimed to be) prosocial. (What does that even mean, are they helpful to humans or only to other gods, Tanya has seen how supposedly prosocial people here treat other species.) But some of them aren't lawful. What does that even mean? Is there a law for gods? Who enforces it?

...no, wait. Belmarniss said some drow worshipped chaotic evil gods! Tanya... doesn't think she can figure this one out without asking Belmarniss, and she doesn't want to mention it to this acolyte because it's probably very prejudicing, but she can at least ask questions about these gods.

"What does it mean for a god to be or not to be lawful? Is there a law for gods? Does Iomedae follow Taldor's laws when she's here?"

"Oooh we have some great books on philosophy of law but it's not my main area - Iomedae doesn't show up in person to the Material, but there are patterns like that Lawful gods mostly won't cleric people within areas where their worship is banned and Chaotic ones more often will. That's a 'mostly', though, just because a government passed a law does not always actually make it the only possible Lawful-in-the-alignment-sense course of action to follow it and support others in following it. There's reason to think that there are treaties of sorts amongst gods, but most of our reason to think this applies to Chaotic gods too, and we're not sure how that works out between them! The most common practical upshot of a god's alignment of course is that they can only empower mortals within one step of them on the notional chart - so Nethys, who's Neutral, can empower other Neutrals, Neutral Good or Evil, Lawful or Chaotic Neutral, but not, say, Lawful Good, and clerics can also lose their powers by drifting out of the permissible alignment range. This may fully explain the pattern of Lawful gods not clericing people where they're banned, because they'd tend toward Lawful clerics, and typical mortal implementation of Law does heavily involve cooperation with mortal authority and governance."

So, religious philosophy aside, it doesn't actually matter much if a god's lawful. It does matter if their empowered followers are, and the lay worshippers probably tend the same.

...it's still weird that people will publicly and deliberately declare themselves unlawful chaotic, or associate with a chaotic temple. Doesn't that have only downsides? Is it a kind of teenage rebellion, or a socially-permissible expression of discontent with government policy? Shelyn can have lawful good followers, so she's safe, and of course musicians wouldn't want to turn away any fans. "Are any chaotic good gods popular here?" (And would any of their concerns match Belmarniss?)

"Desna and Cayden Cailean both see some uptake. There isn't a full Desnan temple in the city but she has a shrine in the temple of Shelyn. Cayden Cailean's main temple is the brewery the way this one is the library and any bar will have a shrine in it somewhere."

"Cayden is a god of beer?" Well, that's makes as much sense as hunting and farming, it's just much narrower. "What is Desna interested in?"

"Alcohol in general and - adventuring and courage - he's a Starstone god too, that was back in 2765, and he was from Taldor in life. Desna is the goddess of travel and the stars and dreams; the travel aspect means you get relatively few Desnans settling in a specific building, though there might be old ones with bad ankles or something doing that in particularly major cities. But you'd run into them on the road now and again, or stopping off on their way in or out of port."

Brave, drunk murderer-for-hire. Except, you know, a prosocial one, bringing in only non-human scalps. The Taldans were so grateful they made him a god, but they still remember he was lawless chaotic. Tanya will be sure to stay away from the local bars, not that she was particularly inclined to visit them anyway. (She doesn't know at what age Taldor allows drinking alcohol but she's rather fond of having an excuse not to get drunk with the men!)

Desna sounds mostly inoffensive. A patron for travelers is probably a natural religious niche. The implication though is that she might encourage people to ignore the laws of the countries they visit, or maybe to skip out on obligations such as the draft. Tanya supposes she can ask about her when she visits the Shelynites.

All in all, it's encouraging that no chaotic gods are widely worshipped here. (Tanya would like to be able to say it's unsurprising, but she has been surprised too many times recently.)

This leaves the question of which faiths are outlawed, but it might not be reputationally safe to ask. What if people get the idea she worships some lawful evil god? Better to talk to Belmarniss first.

She thanks the acolyte for his help. Is Belmarniss busy?

Belmarniss and the third-circle Nethysian are swapping spells! They are presently on the step where he copies Ancestral Regression so she's keeping an eye on her spellbook but not otherwise doing anything, as hers is turned to a filled-in page and his to a previously blank one.

"Everything going well? I've got more questions, but it's not urgent. If you're busy I'm going to visit Shelyn's temple, and maybe Abadar's again, and try to learn more about - everything. I promise I'll keep an open mind and won't get killed by a paladin."

"I'm not free to move around right at this moment as I don't want my spellbook out of my supervision, but I'm free to talk, as long as you don't mind this guy overhearing. But you can go straight to the temples with the questions too, works fine."

Her questions for Belmarniss in particular are somewhat private. "Then I'll see you later. Thank you both for arranging the aura sight."

"No problem. Good luck not getting killed by a paladin."

Tanya will be very paranoid and careful! 

Shelyn's temple is big and pretty and easy to find. How is it organized inside? Is there anyone welcoming people at the door or written directions or something?

The front steps lead to a big vaulted sanctuary; everything that can be decorative is, from the floor mosaic to the Continual-Flame-equipped chandelier, the stained glass and the carved pews, the tapestries hanging between each pair of windows. There's not a service ongoing right now but there are a few people sitting in the pews, either praying quietly by themselves or murmuring to robed Shelynites.

One such robed Shelynite doesn't take long to notice Tanya's entrance and greet her with a big smile and a small wave.

Tanya isn't any kind of expert on the visual arts; she didn't get that kind of education in either of her lives. She enjoys pretty things but she has no idea how good it actually is or isn't. What is legible though is that an enormous amount of skilled work went into making all of this. The labors of love, she supposes; churches on Earth are often the same, even if it does also take very large amounts of money to fund all that love.

She approaches the one Shelynite. "Hello. I'm Tanya von Degurechaff. I arrived in Taldor recently, and I'm not familiar with Shelyn. I was hoping I could bother someone to answer some basic questions for me? I'll make a donation to the temple if it's customary, but I'm afraid I don't have much money right now."