Well, in most cases if I'm on I probably know when you enter my shrine. If I'm free at that moment, I'll take over the priest mobs. I think generally speaking you can pray like normal, and if it's the priest mobs that respond then this is what happened. If they don't, I'm probably not around. Unless you catch me vis, most of our early interactions will likely be through them.

I get you with the struggles. For me I think there are two things to keep in mind. One, I want to know you thought your character through somehow, so that more effort than "i'm cool you're cool let's be cool together" went into it. But you don't have to have all the right answers right away. You can even say something wrong. Just listen to what the mobs say and adapt.

That's another good reason to prefer going through the mobs. I can be way more forgiving through the priests than I can through a dwarf god of rage persona, though Aarn is fairly level headed by and large.

If you're looking for a tattoo expect multiple talks over a period of time. I'm also partial to swooping in and giving rewards when I see you do something cool, but obviously that requires me to see something happen.