He should have fallen on his sword. That would have been the sensible thing to do.
Punched his ticket for Elysium right away, no waiting around.
He thought they'd only kill him.
Why did he think that? How stupid was he? Why in the world did he think that?
And now instead of his next great adventure he's flubbed a save against dominate person.
<Sing aloud: "ALL SHADOWS RETURN TO MY POSITION.">
"All shadows! Return to my position!"
<Blunderer. There are not words for how deeply you've fucked up.>
He's well aware.
What happens next?
<Say without lying that you control your other monsters.>
...
"Without lying that you control y-"
And without mouthing back to the angry archmage.
His Command hitdice are unallocated. Presumably the progenitor shadow's dead.
You could drown Gorum's entire church in Toff's depth and breadth of knowledge, which is a drop in the bucket of what he's learned of shadows tonight.
Either the progenitor shadow is dead, or else it's become a greater shadow. If it has, it's one of several in Korvosa.
It was a longshot that the cleric would have any way to control them; a shadow compels obedience from its direct descendants, but not its descendants' spawn, and the Sable Company has made of the shadow's command structure a grate fit to shred cheese. And that's if they were even ever organized enough to begin with that the snake had a removable head; if a shadow's spawn fly away on orders, and their master dies, what's ever to correct them?
Toff has never wondered what shadows think of in their long wait between victims, even idly in passing.
Or torn the answers from a bound shadow's mind.
It's never what you expect that comes back to bite you.
<Know this. In the final account your idiocy will cost you and yours most of all.>
Maybe Ornher Reebs can spare a malediction.
<Bid your shadows enter this Bag of Holding.>
It becomes visible when Toff drops it on the ground.
Soldiers obey their orders.
Teleport.
Side-along apparition with evil Dumbledore. Joy.
Korvosa!
A large town in Varisia, Korvosa is home to 2,994 humans,
133 dwarves,
74 elves,
36 half-elves,
33 halflings,
33 "other"
and more than 10,000 shadows.
Three hundred years ago – Year 4407 Absolom Reckoning, in the Age of Enthronement – ascendant Cheliax built Fort Korvosa on a small island where the Jeggare river reaches the sea.
Since then they’ve had a few rough centuries.
Aroden died. Cheliax abandoned them. No Korvosan monarch has ever had an heir while sitting the Crimson Throne, leading to a constant succession of crises. There's that whole thing with the shadows.
Most Korvosans live in the Vault, a stuffy and dimly lit cave with few amenities. All entrances and exits have been sealed save one, and there’s a stone shaping cleric on standby near that one if necessary. A horde of enthralled shadows stretch across the door like vantablack, keeping back their free-willed brethren. Death warded adventurers brush through the barrier in both directions.
It's been less than an hour since the shadow attack.
Morale is low.
They gave everything they had, and it wasn't enough. Korvosa held nothing back and there's now nothing left.
But still there's no rest for Field Marshall Cressida Kroft.
The people of Korvosa, reduced to the extremest misery and poverty, many without even a fork or washcloth to their name, sitting or pacing on unworked stone without beds to sleep in, have been stripped of that patina of human civility that blunts tempers sharp and raw. The indigent survivors of the city jumbled together without care for class or hatreds old and new makes for a volatile situation.
Her Guard is exhausted. It falls on the Field Marshall herself to break up the fights between commoners and nobles, Korvosans and foreign adventurers, Korvosans and those Academae wizards who couldn't save the city but who could set it on fire, between Chellish Korvosans and Korvosan Shoanti scapegoats. It seems all Korvosa's loudest have an opinion on who's fault tonight was, but the Field Marshall is well aware that the real villain is one Cressida Kroft, who wasn't prepared, and who didn't prepare the city. Some people intuit this basic point, if they follow less than valid routes getting there, but most fingers find someone less popular to point at. Which is another thing that she did wrong.
I can't believe this happened to me on the day of my coronation.
We're, uh, we're all very sorry for your loss. Your majesty.
We aren't.
You're in the same room as a dozen police officers. Try a little harder to not disturb the peace.
Has anyone seen Neolandus Kalepopulus?
Ooooooh. Actually he died.
Tripped on a loose flagstone and the shadows got him.
It was very sad.
We all cried.
Okay.
Okay.
That makes Marcus Endrin the presumptive Seneschal. Has anyone seen him?
If he's alive, he'll be in the air, not under the ground.
He must be dead too. Better appoint a new Seneschal.
The Field Marshall of the Korvosan Guard appoints the Seneschal of Castle Korvosa.
Or doesn't, as case may be.
As case is.
Since Endrin is who'll get the job, and he's not here.
Oh, that reminds me!
Cressida, girl, you've been demoted for your catastrophic failure to protect this city.
I forgot to bring it up earlier.
There's a new Field Marshall in town!
Sabina Merrin, would you do the honors and select a Seneschal?
The Noble Houses can veto your choice of Field Marshall.
That's so true.
But it'd take a unanimous vote.
Has anyone seen...
House Arkona?
Couldn't even send a footman?
Glorio must not care.
Please don't do this to Korvosa.
Of all times please not now.
There will never be a better time.
Korvosa's legal system operates on the principle that every person should have someone with the power to override all their decisions.
The Field Marshall of the Korvosan Guard is appointed by the reigning monarch, but an odious selection can be vetoed by the Noble Houses.
The Seneschal of Castle Korvosa is appointed by the Field Marshall of the Korvosan Guard, but again the Noble Houses hold veto.
The most powerful person in Korvosa is the monarch, who dictates laws and commands the Korvosan Guard to enforce them.
However, the Noble Houses can with a unanimous vote command the Korvosan Guard to return to Citadel Volshyenek, preventing the monarch's dictate from being enforced. And the Sable Company - necessary for joint operations - answers only to the Seneschal of Castle Korvosa.
The Seneschal of Castle Korvosa is the second most powerful position in Korvosa's government.
Kings and queens come and go, sitting the cursed Crimson Throne. When the line of succession is in dispute - or, just as often, when it comes indisputably full stop - the seneschal chooses a new monarch from the city's aristocracy.
Furthermmore: the seneschal has authority to order the Sable Company evict a Queen from Castle Korvosa or place her under house arrest, for any reason or no reason at all.
Ileosa is not well-loved. In another timeline, her merely sitting in the big red chair brought Korvosa to the edge of anarchy.
Seizing unchecked power in full blatant view of the entire city has improved no one's opinion of her.
I'm someone.
You don't fucking count.
The point is, we're not going to sit around eating popcorn and watching Game of Thrones.
The rule of law, in complex times, has proved itself deficient.
So now let's try the rule of men!
We'll hang the maleficent.
Y'all can sit back down.
Seconded.
Look, I'm as opposed to mob justice as anyone -
Telling lies is bad for your alignment.
- but what do you say we take a temporary hiatus from due process just long enough for some emergency repairs to the due-processing institution.
You don't want to throw the legitimacy of the state into doubt or normalize political violence. We get it. We really do. Half of us are Lawful Neutral.
But come on, Field Marshall. Eodred's hired wife has been Queen for one hour and look at this! She's got the whole city doubting the legitimacy of the state.
What happens in hour number two, huh? We won't get a second chance to nip this in the bud.
The Queen has committed no crimes, and may yet grow into her position.
No one in this room has murdered any teenagers today and I see no reason we can't keep that trend going indefinitely.
I'll need you to roll for Diplomacy.
If +18 on Diplomacy checks doesn't salt your stew, I can also roll Intimidate.
Or heads.
The only social skill in which I have no ranks is Bluff.
...We'll keep our peace.
For now.
Lovely. I'm glad that's been settled.
Miserable hours stretch by. Pathfinders stop passing in and out of the Vault: death ward lasts a minute per caster level.
Cressida Kroft is resting her legs - and despite herself, her eyes - when there's a commotion in the far corner of the room.
Maybe they started it and maybe they didn't (though in either case the ultimate blame rests on those savage and bloodthirsty Shoanti, polluting the air with their native stinks and rituals) but there's a fistfight going on and it's drawing in the sufficiently stir-crazy.
As bacteria in a dish are limited to their agar, so too are brawls bounded. But, uh, now the Dusters have entered the fray and Kynndors Thok is bowling over commoners like they're ninepins. So maybe don't let this one play all the way out.
Look, if you want me to apologize I'll apologize, just pull him off of me.
Yeah.
Alright.
She's getting up.
Before she crosses the cavern, heroes swoop in!
With a little colorful spraying and a lot of nonlethal damage, innocents are extracted and aggressors subdued!
Atop a small pile of bludgeoned belligerents, Cressida Kroft will meet:
1 - One Tian woman wearing a katana and naginata. Flowers grow in her green leafy hair.
2 - One four-armed kasatha open carrying some of the more menacing hardware as is found in Alkenstar or Numeria.
3 - One blue-skinned samsaran swimming in the robes of an Academae student, and around her neck a symbol holy to the Empyreal Lord Ragathiel.
4 - One scruffy aasimar, complete with glowing halo and looking to all the world like he woke up in a drain pipe. He wears a rapier, carries a tankard, and has the holy symbol of Cayden Cailean tattooed on his hand. Maybe other places too, he'd need a mirror to know for sure.
...Are you lot with the Pathfinders?
I've lived in the Vault all my life.
You've lived in Korvosa all your life, the Vault situation is new. I think it's only been a few days?
In that case I've lived in Korvosa my whole life.
Right.
Thanks for breaking up the fight.
Another fight like that and we'll make level three.
You're with the Korvosan Guard, right? We need to talk to Cressida Kroft.
Can you make a DC 10 Knowledge (local) check?
We cannot.
*sigh*
This is Cressida Kroft. You're talking to her.
We found a secret door out of the Vault, and behind it was a dusty little dungeon. Maybe sealed off for thousands of years, the deeper parts are caved in. There were traps and skeletons and this animated statue
- absolutely brutal encounter -
this animated statue dressed in stone robes like they wore in Thassilon. Uh, Thassilonian robes weren't made of stone, the stone robes were - whatever, forget it.
oh my god what is your point just say it
While we were down there we found this oil of magic weapon and this scroll of detect undead.
We thought we were safe from shadows in the Vault, but then why would we need oil of magic weapon? Why a scroll of detect undead?
There could be a shadow in the Vault with us, hiding.
You found - in a tunnel that's been sealed for thousands of years - a magic scroll penned millennia before Aroden's death. And from that you deduced the presence of a shadow lurking in this cave system today, on the 14th of Neth, 4707 AR.
I guess we didn't think of it from that angle.
???
Sense Motive (Wis)
You are skilled at detecting falsehoods and true intentions.
Check: A successful check lets you avoid being bluffed (see the Bluff skill). You can also use this skill to determine when "something is up" (that is, something odd is going on) or to assess someone's trustworthiness.
Task Sense Motive DC Hunch 20 Sense enchantment 25 or 15 Discern secret message Varies Hunch: This use of the skill involves making a gut assessment of the social situation. You can get the feeling from another's behavior that something is wrong, such as when you're talking to an imposter. Alternatively, you can get the feeling that someone is trustworthy.
You think you're going places. What are your long term goals?
Apotheosis.
Sorry, that's a cached answer.
Uh, right now our presumptive long-term objective is retaking Korvosa from the shadows.
They're heroic by disposition, and seem trustworthy. If she had to guess their alignments from five minutes' interaction she'd peg the Tian as LG, Kasatha as N or LN, Samsaran as NG, and the Caydenite as CG.
She wants to say that they're experienced adventurers, they carry themselves that way. They have the casual ambition, the inimitable confidence born of unbreakable defenses, the implicit trust in each other you see in parties that have fought side by side.
But it's like all their experience is plumbing dungeons in the Maelstrom or First World.
She wants to keep a closer eye on them. And... she should get someone to spot-check her judgement and scan for enchantments, but based on her hunch she's inclined to trust them.
Are the four of you looking for work?
The Korvosan Guard was once the largest military force in Varisia.
There were 246 stationed in the city itself – One in fifty adult Korvosans.
But they took heavier causalities than even the general population.
Of roughly two thousand surviving adults, twelve are veterans of the Korvosan Guard.
13.
Auspicious.
The Gamemastery Guide suggests a settlement should have 1% of their adult population in the city watch. We have half of one percent. It's not enough manpower.
I’ll pay each of you 10 sails a day for the next five -
I’ll need to check with the Field Marshall whether I can hire you. I don’t expect difficulty there but may nonetheless be met with it.
I thought you were the Field Marshall?
You missed the show, dungeoneers!
King Edodred Arabasti was slain by shadows. His wife, Queen Ileosa Arabasti, nee Ileosa Arvanxi, ascended the Crimson Throne.
Ileosa chose her house-guard Sabina Merrin to succeed me as Field Marshall.
Those highly memorable names are certain to stick in my mind.
Then take your own notes, "Altronus."
Kroft’s too polite.
Ileosa publicly humiliated the most loyal and competent Field Marshal in living Korvosan memory without a fig-leaf of justification, in order to install her crony to the position, so said crony could install a scullery maid as Seneschal of Castle Korvosa.
This wasn’t a transfer of power. It was a coup, plain and simple.
Why not just scry Eodred’s shadow, kill it, and resurrect the man?
Uhhhhhhhhh sorry if that was rude. If you want I can avoid poking holes.
Besides, maybe there’s no one in Korvosa who can cast the spells, by the Dungeon Master’s Guide v 3.5 the strongest cleric in a large town like Korvosa should be level 4 or 7.
I know your job is a lot of work and don’t want to make things harder for you.
You’re wearing the robes of an Academae student.
That's true, I even have the feat.
I don’t know how they do it in the Academae, other than that it’s bad, and even worse than I thought.
But in the Korvosan Guard you will not be punished for having bright ideas. I will not be angry if you screw up my lesson plan.
If you have an idea, bring it to me right away.
I’m neither cleric nor a wizard. Like as not you’ve higher INT and WIS than me. Don’t assume I’ve thought of something that seems obvious to you, or a hidden good reason for seeming foolishness. Sometimes I’m just being stupid.
Pointing out when that happens doesn't make my job any harder. It makes it a lot easier.
(The poor kid’s confidence has been damaged enough. Kroft sees no reason to tell her she already planned on resurrecting Eodred and thought it shrewder to keep under wraps.)
I need to find Field Marshall Merrin, where is she?
While you were asleep we decided that Sabina Merrin is #not our Field Marshall. We came up with a bunch of nicknames, of which the most virulent was ‘Cave Marshall.’
It’s understated. Classy.
We play it off as a joke, but let me assure you that there is a real viciousness behind it.
That's very mature of you. Where's the Field Marshall?
Look in a mirror.
Where can I find Sabina Merrin.
Say the magic words~
Please tell me where I can find Sabina Merrin?
Those weren't the magic words. Have you ever heard of the wizard Baruffio, who said 's' instead of 'f' and found himself on the floor with a buffalo on his chest?
Seems safer to just recite the spell as it was given.
Where
*sigh*
can I find Cave Marshall Sabina Merrin.
Ileosa's inner circle took over a side tunnel for only themselves. Booted everyone else out.
You can find them over there.
Field Marshal, are you interruptible?
...You can call me Sabina, Kroft.
What do you need?
Apparently what Cressida Kroft needed was a guilty conscience.
Sabina Merrin was a Korvosan Guard before Ileosa headhunted her. Wherever life thereafter takes a Guardsman, and whatever their political differences, that remains a sacred bond.
I wanted to deliver the Field Marshall's seal.
And the keys and passwords to Citadel Volshyenek.
And I need to brief you on the responsibilities you'll be taking over.
There's basically infinite work to hand off. You need to figure out who's alive and dead and pay the dead Guardsmen's survivors if they have any, account for our equipment and expended consumables, pay various people for services rendered last night, collect payments from various people for services rendered last night, and figure out which standing rewards you're on the hook to deliver.
A lot of that can't be done from within the Vault, or at least not right now, but we need some kind of estimate of our assets and ongoing expenses. There's a laundry list of urgent missions outside the Vault we'd like to hire the Pathfinders for but don't know if we can afford. And within the Vault, the Korvosan Guard is desperately understaffed. Breaking up fights takes me away from the things which only I can do, and it's not lost on me that you're in this tunnel bodyguarding the Queen, which you can't do and run this organization. You need to hire more Guardsmen, decide who to promote to Watch Sergeant, and decide who you trust to protect our Queen.
Field -
Cressida.
I will need you to show me what and where I should sign.
Creessida Kroft gives Sabina a comforting smile, an ‘I know you didn’t ask for this, I don’t blame you, it’s not your fault,’ smile to answer the apology the Field Marshall has written on her face but doesn't dare to voice aloud in Queen Ileosa’s vicinity.
‘Don’t trust me as a friend,’ Cressida Kroft does not say. ‘My loyalty is to Korvosa, neither you nor your faction, who I frankly view as villains,’ she does not explain, ‘and the extent to which you hand me the reigns is the precise extent to which I will not hand them back.’
"Don't worry," says the Watch Sergeant. "We'll figure this out together."
The deceit might be bad for her Law – or maybe not. She’s certainly seen worse from Lawful Ornher Reebs.
Then it must be bad for her Good – but then, Vencarlo Orisini used to bamboozle Korvosa’s elite in the most audacious way. He’d joke about his exploits while Cressida laughed and shook her head, and Vencarlo glowed as Good as any fighter.
Alright. So she's following the letter of the Law, in service of the greater Good.
But maybe it’s bad somehow for her Lawful Good in conjunction, a diagonal move towards True Neutral. Something something cashing in on a reputation for straight-shooting. She isn't a theologian.
It feels like it should be bad for her alignment. Whether or not it really is, what she knows for sure is it’s bad for her Cressida Kroft. It isn't who she wants to be.
Don't worry. We'll figure this out together. With a friendly smile.
...It’s been such a very long night.
Yup, we’ll figure this out together. Just the three of us and the outside accountants I decide to hire.
Surprise, surprise, it turns out I have ears, bitch.
Don’t think I didn’t see what you were doing.
Unless the decision routes through me, Kroft, you won’t be spending a single copper cap.
In Korvosa a copper coin is called a 'pinch.'
Well the same thing holds for copper pinches.
:D
Ow! What the Abyss?
I HATE THIS STUPID BACKWATER PROVINCE AND EVERYONE IN IT.
:(
Except you, Sabina.
:3
Right.
Back to brass tacks.
They need their Field Marshall in the field. The first priority should be assigning a squad of Guards to protect the Queen, so that the Field Marshall is freed up to hire their relief by the time the shift ends.
The men are dead tired, some are strength-damaged, and even at their best none could match Sabina or Kroft, but if they post half the Guard and put them under command of Watch Sergeant Grau Soldado...
I’m sorry, Watch Sergeant who now.
You’ve met?
We studied under Vencarlo Orisini. I don’t want him near Ileosa.
Noted.
...What Kroft would give to speak again to Vencarlo.
Outside of Merrin and Kroft, Soldado is the Guard’s strongest living fighter. If he’s disqualified they’re left pulling from a very shallow bench. The Korvosan Guard is down to thirteen soldiers:
Field Marshall Sabina Merrin;
Watch Sergeants Kroft and Soldado; Detective Brontolone and Guard Chaplain Sebastia Jeggare;
Senior Guardsmen Sahlara, Karralo, and Baldrago; Lieutenant Spellmaster Tavid Bromathan;
Guardsmen Eveli, Malder, Proudfoot, and Parns.
Or, by class and level:
Kroft: Aristocrat 1/Fighter 9
Soldado: Rogue 2/Fighter 4
Brontolone: Warrior 2/Expert 3
Jeggare: Aristocrat 2/Cleric 1
Sahlara: Expert 2/Warrior 1
Karralo: Warrior 2
Baldrago: Warrior 2
Bromathan: Aristocrat 1/Wizard 1
Eveli: Warrior 2
Malder: Warrior 1
Proudfoot: Fighter 2
Parns: Warrior 1
Remove the highest level characters, and then everyone who’s strength-damaged or sleep-deprived, and then remove either Karralo or Baldrago because they act stupid together with no one that outranks them, and that leaves… just Sahlara, Baldrago, and Parns.
It would be really convenient if Kroft could go out, do a round of hiring, and came back.
I don't know why you're angling towards that but that you want it is reason enough you can't have it.
I order you to stay here and keep anyone from entering the tunnel. Sabina can find Guard candidates and bring them here to be interviewed by me.
That works fine. If I'd thought you’d feel safe with no one in between us, I might have suggested it myself.
You stood between me and the mob earlier tonight. You aren’t randomly going to stab me, you're not that type of threat.
I am so glad that's common knowledge.
And if you did, your god would claw back all your paladin powers.
I am not a Paladin???
...Is it too late to call Sabina back?
The Guard is hiring. I’m looking for people who interview well and can hold their own in a fight.
You are looking for people who interview well? Usually that's less explicit.
I’m not about to bring someone back to Ileosa that makes her question my judgement.
Well those guys over there certainly can fight.
But you’ll have to tell me how well it is they interview.
The Field Marshall is asking for your job qualifications, how do you open?
I've got this, friends. I always keep my resume up to date.
SUMMARY
Aasimar Cleric 2 of Cayden Cailean. I'm skilled with a rapier, proficient with shields, medium armor, and all simple weapons. I have first level divine spells and can channel positive energy 6 times per day.
EDUCATION
SKILLS
- Diplomacy
- Perform (percussion)
- Knowledge (religion)
- Knowledge (engineering and architecture)
EXPERIENCE
Abadius 4638 – Erastus 4638
Pegasus Shipping, Kantaria, Menador, Deckhand
- Assisted with cargo operations
- Assisted with unmooring the vessel
- Assisted with handling lines
- Involved in watchkeeping activity
Erastus 4638 - Lamashan 4650
Freelance, Augustana, Arthfell, Panhandler
- Begged for my daily bread
- Stood up for the other street urchins
- Broke both of my legs
Lamashan 4650 - Lamashan 4651
- Took a year off
4651 - 4656
- Took another five years off4656 - Abadius 4666
- Spent five years carousing
Abadius 4666 - Calistril 4669
Almas University, Almas, Student
- Studied religion, philosophy, maths and architecture
Calistril 4669 - Arodus 4671
People's Revolt, Andoran, Signal Drummer
- Beat a drum
- Walked a lot
- Became a holy healer
Arodus 4671 - Arodus 4677
People's Revolt, Andoran, Support Cleric
- Channeled positive energy 6 times a day
- Did other odd jobs but was mostly never stabbed
Neth 4683 - Arodus 4706
Centimane Archetecture LLC, Korvosa, Varisia, Architect
- Was integral to the renovation and restoration of Korvosa's Temple to Asmodeus
- Likewise key in designing and building the Pantheon of Many
Arodus 4706 - Neth 4707
Church of Cayden Cailean, Korvosa, Varisia, Most High Arch Megapope
- Held weekly services at the Pantheon of Many twice or thrice a week
- Got on the other clerics' nerves
- Channeled positive energy 6 times a day
- Did other odd jobs and got stabbed pretty often
Neth 4707 - current
Those Fucking Guys, Korvosa, Varisia, Adventurer
- Served as the primary healer and as a secondary frontline fighter
- Took point on destroying 1HD skeletons
- Took notes on the plot and wrote down people's names
- Functioned as the party face in situations that required a high charisma score
You don’t look like a seventy year old man.
That’s because I’m eighty-seven. Aasimars start at 60, and a Trained class like Cleric adds 6d8.
Check out my halo, I can turn it on and off.
Dude, that was errata'd.
Is the halo always on?
...or is it always off.
There were plot holes in various Adventure Paths where, like, an Aasimar was raised by a human being or in a human society. And didn’t spend 60 years in an extended preadolescence.
So Paizo fixed it by giving Aasimars a more human lifespan.
Should I be rolling the PERCENTILE DICE to learn whether my VENERABLE ASS is already dead?
Just erase the 8 on your character sheet and write a 2.
You can’t just erase sixty years of hard living. That shit leaves its indelible mark.
Oh! What if you swapped out your spell-like ability for Immortal Spark?
I'm reading it and Immortal Spark doesn't seem to actually make you immortal or indeed age one whit slower.
Yeah, sorry, that one was half-baked.
8 → 2
Let's just not play with the errata.
I like the errata. If all aasimar were like forlorn elves, that'd be their most defining trait.
Aasimar take after their celestial ancestors in different ways. They’re all supposed to have their unique quirks. Some have halos, some have antlers, some of them have wings.
How about some aasimar age more like genie-kin, and others more like half-elves? And then the archpope can be one of the ones that age more like genie-kin.
Works for me.
Despite your sterling credentials as a beggarman, dropout, and revolting peasant, we regret to inform you that we have decided to move forward with a different candidate at this time. Based on your prior experience as a republican agitator, we hope you apply for a diplomatic role in our Magnimar embassy.
Don’t hesitate to apply for other positions that interest you.
Regards,
Field Marshall Sabina Merrin.
oh my god I love her
Interview me next.
You are now being interviewed.
What do you bring to the table?
I’m a second level character with 51 hitpoints and Fast Healing 4.
I'll take you to see the Queen.
I'm happy to go chitchat, but I wouldn’t want to waste my time.
Full disclosure: I’m real unlikely join your crew if you don’t sign on the party healer.
Ileosa does have CLW as a bard.
I'll keep that in mind for if I cut my finger on a police report.
Sabina thinks that Choryon is underrating how cute it is when Ileosa panics about arrows sticking in you, but has to concede that it doesn’t heal a lot of hitpoints.
If you don’t want to work with us, it’s no skin off my nose. Find something else to do.
I think you’re making a mistake.
Imagine reading a story where the rich and powerful Field Sergeant of the Korvosan Guard meets a convivial old man living in her Vault, wearing the rags of a pauper and the mien of a fool. But about his head glimmers a glowing halo, in his veins course the blood of angels, and you know he’s got Wisdom in the double digits.
Any story that starts like that can only end in one of two ways.
Fate rewards the character for passing a hidden test of character.
Or the character is punished for failing it.
Real life has duller morals, like "don't trust things to pushy idiots that you don't want trusted to pushy idiots."
Offer rescinded.
Is it going to derail the plot if none of us are hired by her?
It's an open fucking world, you nincompoops.
Please forgive my friend. She knows that I have been saddled with a terrible debt paying for the healing of my dear... niece. Choryon's heart was moved to pity for my desperate situation.
If you don’t think I’d make a good jackbooted thug, I won’t protest. But don’t hold Choryon’s clumsy advocacy on my behalf against her.
She would serve your master faithfully, for that is her code, and the honor of a samurai is unbreakable.
Do you have any ranks in Bluff?
Do you have any ranks in Sense Motive?
What does Sabina think of these people.
Her initial impression was favorable. She heard of the brawl they’d broken up, which spoke favorably of their capabilities and at least somewhat of their character.
And then they looked visibly impressive. Any one of them could have racial hitdice.
At least three of the four have magic powers of some kind, be it wizardry or the blessing of a god or native sorcery.
But something about them raises flags as red as Korvosa’s muddy crimson standard…
…Ah, now she’s put her finger on what she finds unsettling most of all.
She is currently talking to the four happiest people in all of Korvosa.
Five in six Korvosans died this morning, and it isn’t even dawn. Most were damned. The survivors are in the most miserable conditions Sabina can conceive of, and no one has a scrap of privacy.
And these four people in front of her, laughing and joking, are without a doubt the cheeriest in the entire Vault.
They aren’t cracking jokes trying to cut the tension. They aren’t looking for a spot of levity in a sea of dread and horror.
They’re… just happy to be here. Engaged and having fun. With the possible exception of the four-armed thing and its dead shark-like eyes.
Even Ileosa is more subdued, after Eodred died without heir, and ten years sooner than anyone dared to hope.
Even Ileosa less exultant, after she installed her choice of Seneschal.
Her gut says to just walk. Sabina doesn’t have anything against non-humanoids but it does make her uncomfortable when they behave in alien and unsettling ways.
Perhaps behind that angelic smile and those shark-eyes hide sensible emotions appropriate to the situation. There’s no strong reason to think all four of them are complete fucking weirdos.
But if they were she couldn’t tell and that’s more than enough reason not to let them watch Ileosa when she’s sleeping.
When Sabina returns to Ileosa's side she brings some tough-looking dockworkers, an Endrin that knows her way around a sword, and a pair of Academae students who aren't averse to working late. (School, after all, is out for the foreseeable future.)
Choryon and Altronus would bowl through the seven of them as quickly as would any pair of fifth-level characters, but they can hopefully hold a tunnel for long enough that the Guard's higher level fighters can scramble for the scene.
None of these people seem very interesting to her, but if Sabina thinks they'll do their jobs adequately so does Ileosa.
Everyone roll initiative.
Eh?
Round 1
Each of the seven new hires have been disarmed of their weapons or have had their legs swept from under them.
Cressida Kroft is holding Queen Ileosa's crown.
That was a pretty poor showing.
Round 2
Kroft tosses the Queen back her crown.
The combat is over, we're no longer in initiative order.
Fine, I'll interview your people.
Cressida Kroft obviously wants to make sure that as they rebuild the Guard it is loyal to her, not to Ileosa.
It is necessary to cut her out of the the entire operation. The longer Ileosa waits, the deeper Kroft's tendrils will take root.
But Kroft knows that Ileosa knows this, and she has responded by trying to prove herself indispensable. It's unfortunately working. Korvosa is in a bad state. Ileosa has no palace to ride it out in. It's far from clear the city will ever recover.
She needs Kroft's competence if she's even going to survive, let alone become Queen of a kingdom worth calling that. At least in the short run.
In the medium term she's going to form a different another military branch under Sabina's command, cannibalize Cressida Kroft's Korvosan Guard, and sideline or disband it.
In the long term Ileosa will be waited on by an army of beautiful women who are unflinchingly loyal to her and her alone, and she’ll wish up all of her stats and make herself immortal and be loved and feared in equal measure as over the centuries she paints a map that puts Old Cheliax to shame.
And for old time’s sake, she’ll rub Cressida's face in all of it. Present her with everything that Kroft’s careful schemes and long intrigues failed to prevent.
Maybe she'll have the one-time Field Marshall reduced to slavery. Sell her to Katapesh. Or have her put under magical compulsion and made to serve loyally in Ileosa's Gray Maidens.
She'll come up with something fitting.
Subject to the Queen's approval, I'll pay you ten gold sails a day for the next ten days to serve in the Korvosan Guard.
It doesn't seem worth planning even eleven days out, what with how everything is in the air. But at the end of that period you can decide if you want to stay with the Guard long-term, and I can decide if you get to.
What does the job entail?
You’ll be assigned to a Watch Sergeant who knows the ropes.
For your first eight hour shift you'll be guarding the Queen, so she doesn't die on us and throw things even further into disarray.
No promises that you'll be on guard duty for the long run, and also no promises that you won't be.
But after that I mostly expect you'll be asked to patrol the Vault. Eight hours on, twelve hours off. Maintain the peace, respond to emergencies, investigate crimes, issue warnings and - gods willing - issue citations.
At dawn I'll set up a cage to hold prisoners, which will make the job easier. You should be liberal dumping people in there to cool off. Including nobles. If they piss and moan about it you can say it's good for their Law.
But not including spellcasters, unless it's absolutely unavoidable, and if you do jail someone important get me so I can smooth things over. Don't pick fights it'll be costly for the Guard to win.
If the four prove themselves reliable and are amenable to it, Kroft would like to promote some of them to Sergeant-level and give them junior Guardsmen to watch, to stretch their rare competence a little further.
But adventuring parties are often averse to splitting up their group, and at any rate telling new hires she's thinking of promoting them tomorrow would make a vice of transparency.
Well well well.
Level two and already rubbing shoulders with royalty.
Be on your best behavior, guys. Don't do anything to get us executed.
Pfffft, I'd like to see them try.
Yes, but don't say it aloud.
Everyone in the city has met the Queen.
Except, apparently, you four in particular.
Okay, but that was a cutscene.
This will be a conversation.
How often do second level characters converse with a Queen?
Please don't make it a conversation.
I have two hitdice and 0 BAB, I'm not fighting my way out of any palaces.
Even yesterday Korvosa was home to less than 20,000 people. Ileosa married Eodred only three years ago, but in that time a hefty minority of Korvosans have had occasion to trade words with her.
And most people in the city had ever spoken with the late King Eodred.
Not to mention that political power doesn't particularly track character level. The only magistrate we have the character level for is an Aristocrat 1, of the heads of noble Houses we have levels for Lord Bromathan is level 4 and Lady Leroung level 3.
Okay, okay, we get it. I am no longer excited about meeting the Queen, happy? But seriously, no one do anything to piss off her or her guards.
What guards? That's what they're hiring us to do.
Choryon's point stands.
Hey, Megapope, are you taking down Lord Bro-Man and Lady Leng's names?
Should I be? How important are they?
Not particularly, compared to the heavy hitters in House Ornelos and Jeggare.
Or the second-rung Houses Arabasti and Arkona, or arguably even third-stringer Houses Endrin and Zenderholm.
Bromathan and Leroung are pretty much the poorest and least influential Great Houses in Korvosa - but even the lowest of Korvosa's Great Houses are live players, and who knows how the Vault will settle after being shaken this thoroughly.
Is it important that we remember those names?
I gotchu covered.
Bromathen, Layrowngue, Ornellous, Jegare, Arabasty, Argona, Endrin, and what was that last one again? Zen-something?
"Arkona" with a "K."
Argona and Arkona, because that's not confusing at all.
House Arabasti as in Ileosa Arabasti?
What's House Ornelos and House Jeggarre doing above the sitting monarch, uh, in terms of wealth and influence?
The Arabasti don't have that long a history in Korvosa, and even before the shadow attack you could count the Korvosan Arabasti on your fingers.
Whereas House Ornelos and House Jeggarre were incredibly rich and deeply entrenched in Korvosa's institutions, even though no one single Ornelos or Jeggarre wielded greater power than King Eodred Arabasti.
It's adorable that you think that.
The King in the NPC Codex is a level 10 Aristocrat. I think we can assume Ileosa won't be any weaker than that.
If she isn't any stronger either, I can totally take her.
I'm not with this man. To the extent that I ever was, I now disavow him in the strongest possible terms.
Is there somewhere I can report seditious talk? That sounds like something they'd have in Little Cheliax.
Upstairs, there's an anonymous box.
Tell me when you've set one up somewhere less shadowy.
I'm just saying it's an option, is all.
Kroft forgot to mention this earlier, but at least one of you will be required to pass an oath under Abadar's truthtelling.
(Korvosa's remaining first-circle cleric spells are going for almost twenty sails a piece, so the Guard will be spending down the limited charges they have in a wand.)
Cast the spell on me and I'll vouch for the others.
Haha, no. I'll pick one of you at random.
The oath is a fairly light touch. 2% of adult Korvosans pass it, in a big public ceremony, knowledge (local) to know the specifics. But if any of you were, like, actively planning to murder the Queen of Korvosa. This might not be the job for you.
Planning or intending? The US DoD has plans to invade Canada.
Cressida Kroft leads the band of second-level misfits across the Vault to Ileosa's tunnel.
If these people were in the Vault earlier, Illeosa would have noticed. She wonders where Kroft found them.
Your majesty! We are as worms before you, worms before glorious Queen Ileosa of the Korvosan Vault, whose radiance is as the nigh-forgotten sun, whose celestial sunlike radiance gives all Korvosans the strength to continue, to continue in your radiant light. We humbly prostate ourselves, like the worms that we are. We hope there will be much love, despite our, uh, wormitude, between our lowly and wormlike selves and your glorious and radiant self.
Long may you reign.
Please don't kill us.
Or have us killed, or, I guess, assign us to a mission which unbeknownst to us is highly likely to result in our deaths, or, really, anything else along that general theme.
The two of you are laying it on a little thick, don't you think?
Sure, if no one else is going to, he'll go ahead and introduce himself.
"Olin Mull, Primate of Varisia, Cayden Cailean's compadre.
I don't think we've yet had the pleasure of becoming acquainted?"
YOU have a NAME?
And I'm writing it down right now.
You wrote that whole resume and you never NAMED your CHARACTER?
What would be the point when I'm the only one who'd remember it.
Are we trading names and titles with the (knowledge (local) DC 20) Caydenite from the Pantheon of Many? It seems we're trading titles with the Caydenite from the Pantheon of Many.
"Her Royal Highness Queen Ileosa Arabasti, Queen of Korvosa, Steward of Chelish Varisia."
Ileosa doesn't hide her incomprehension. She does consider - a split second decision - whether to conceal what umbrage she's taken, and decides instead to play it up - favoring them all with a rather severe look that lingers especially on the flowery warrior lady and the babbling blue person.
Okay, we're doing names.
Hasagi Choryon. Temporarily embarrassed samurai, momentarily in between masters.
Lyvina Mayyad, student of Conjuration at Korvosa's own Academae and, uh, journeyman ecclesitheurge of the Empyreal Lord Ragathiel.
Altronus.
Blah blah niceties niceties it's so great to meet you how do you know Cressida Kroft?
We literally just met.
That's not what she was expecting but she'll certainly take it.
A Southshore cleric, Academae student, four-armed monster, and Tian-Min ronin on the wrong side of the Crown of the World - presumably you don't drink in the same taverns. How do you know each other?
The second verse goes much like the first.
I am, for the record, a non-ronin lordless wandering samurai.
(Except, sometimes, in the small hours of muggy nights, she remembers that enervating heat and oppressive psychic presence. And sometimes she locks eyes with Cressida Kroft and feels a familiar twinge of dread.)
And at any rate it'd be a waste to probe their minds before Ileosa has even seen what their faces betray.
She's already sipping from the Yondabakari Cascades... though admittedly detect thoughts would perhaps help her make sense of it.
Clerics wig her out. There's not one of them in the infinite planes who thinks like a normal person.
This one has absolutely no fear or social anxiety, and is poorly trying to hide that he doesn't care what she thinks of him one whit.
Ileosa considers the theory that he's secretly an incredibly high level, or has bigger angelic powers than most aasimar, but that's not it. When the cleric steps one way or another, the kasatha and samurai shift their posture, ready to defend. And when the samurai carelessly stepped to one side, the cleric followed behind to close the open charge lane.
And another line of reasoning: the self-styled pope was preaching at the Pantheon of Many. If he were even fourth-circle, she'd have heard.
He isn't fearless like a planetar or ancient dragon pretending to be a human. He doesn't think he's in control.
He's fearless like whatever happens doesn't deeply matter, so he might as well have fun with it.
Is he high on flayleaf? Or is it some kind of religious enlightenment? Or, as a Caydenite, has he found a way to combine the two?
Alternately, perhaps the man was just born crazy. Or took a lick to the head and needs a sixth-circle heal.
In the Lawful Neutral city of Korvosa there is a building called the Pantheon of Many, in which you'll find shrines to seventeen deities. Which gods were cut is informative - of twenty main deities, the Pantheon only lacks shrines to Gorum, Lamashtu, and Rovagug.
There is a common view in Korvosa (though by no means universal), that there are three corners of the alignment chart compatible with civilization. You don't want Evil as a neighbor unless it is Lawful, and you don't want Chaos next door unless it is Good.
Ileosa does not subscribe to this view. She views Chaos as disruptive and Good, far from an ameliorating factor, as a potential conflict of loyalty.
But Korvosa is not Westcrown, and she accepts that as Queen in Korvosa there will be some CG people under her at least in the short run.
She may not like this person or understand them, but they seem more like an eccentric gadfly than a crusading vigilante. And clerics are, despite their alien modes of thinking, indispensable to any organization.
Ileosa doesn't find the Caydenite all that interesting, but it's both reassuring and second-nature for to her plot his ruin.
The self-styled pope wants his juvenile fun. That's a fault line between him and every sane person on this planet. If she needs him out of the group Ileosa is confident that she can get him kicked out of the group.
Or, if she wants to cheaply ingratiate herself with him, she can help him embarrass Ornher Reebs.
If she pretends to lean Chaotic Good, she could get him on her side against the slave-owning nobles and wicked or misguided goons like the book-bothering Cressida Kroft. And it could be useful to have another agent comfortable working outside the law.
Highly strung, distractable, disgustingly earnest, easily spooked but brave in the sense of pushing past fear. Apologetic, keenly aware of the difference in their positions, she thinks that Ileosa is only putting up with her.
She's clever in the way of wizards. Cleverer than most wizards.
But in mindset she's the lowest of peasants. The Academae's other apprentices, peers or wealthy commoners, likely walked all over her.
Ragathiel is the Angel of Vengeance. This spacey soft-spoken samsaran has hidden depths.
But gives away relatively little besides her nervousness.
Ileosa will have her chance to learn more in a private conversation, and until then she'll avoid giving offense. A propensity towards fits of righteous anger is useful in a stooge if and only if there's a hilt there you can grasp.
Will she, though? Will Ileosa avoid giving offense?
She will at least try.
Ileosa is admittedly much better at splendoring people into corners than she is at seeming genuine while humoring fools.
Beautiful, exotic, fey or fey-blooded, athletic, brash and headstrong.
Quick to act and used to getting her way without trying very hard - expects good outcomes from throwing herself forward and seeing what happens. Ileosa gets the impression of a knight errant, chivalrous and heroic.
Maybe heroic by default and not true conviction - there's something dangerous and appraising in that blankly pleasant smile.
Or maybe she's just reading in the things she wants to see.
Aloof... no, that's definitely not it. Absent-minded. Quickly bored. Absent constant stimulation Choryon falls asleep with her eyes wide open, only to startle and leap into the conversation like a doll springing to life.
As she paces impatiently, the party shifts its composition to compensate. They consider her their strongest fighter.
Ileosa wants to put Choryon through her paces and see if in battle the woman comes fully alive.
Sabina doesn't like the way Ileosa's ogling the creepily happy fey thing.
The samurai claims to be "in between masters." Ileosa should arrange to save Choryon's life or otherwise win her loyalty.
The taciturn kasatha is hard to read.
She does think he looks extremely cool, and already plans on showing him off to everyone.
He seems annoyed when his comrades act foolishly, that's a possible fault line.
Another one to interview more privately.
It seems wise to tap all of you who want to join our organization with the truthtelling wand. I'll state the oaths of service first, and if you find them unobjectionable I'll spend a charge and you can repeat after me.
You don't have to take the Oath of the Watch, but if you don't you'll never be eligible for promotion to Watch Sergeant or equivalent positions.
The Oath of the Korvosan Guard:
I (state name), do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the People and State of Korvosa against its enemies foreign and domestic; that I will obey the lawful orders of the Field Marshall of the Korvosan Guard, the Queen of Korvosa, and the officers appointed over me, according to the regulations and Constitution of Korvosa; that I will conduct myself as a representative of the People of Korvosa, the Queen of Korvosa, the Korvosan Guard, and the Bank of Abadar; that I take this obligation freely, without mental reservation for the purpose of evasion or deception; and that I hold myself bound by this promise for so long as I draw a Guardsman's wages.
And then the Oath of the Watch:
I (state name), do solemnly swear that I will uphold the regulations and Constitution of Korvosa, as they are written and as they are intended; that I will protect the peaceful against violence and disorder; that I recognize the badge of my office as a symbol of public faith, and swear to maintain that faith; that I will enforce the law without fear or favor, malice or ill will; that whatever I see or hear of a confidential nature or that is confided to me in my official capacity will be kept secret unless revelation is necessary in the performance of my duty; that I take this obligation freely, without mental reservation for the purpose of evasion or deception; and that I hold myself bound by this promise for so long as I draw a Guardsman's wages.[1]
-
Did I miss it or is there nothing in there against planning to kill the Queen?
As long as she hasn't explicitly ordered you not to, yeah... is there a rule in there against intending... or even really killing her?
"I (state name), do solemnly swear that I will uphold the regulations and Constitution of Korvosa, as they are written and as they are intended;"
At least one of us should hold off on agreeing to the Oath of the Watch.
It'll raise fewer questions not coming from me.
What do the words "without mental reservation for the purpose of evasion or deception" mean to you?
I was planning not to take the second oath since they first said it was optional.
*sigh*
Now it's time for the part of the interview process where you fight for my amusement.
Fuckin' SWEET!
Teams of two or a four-way brawl?
Four on one.
Shit!
SHIT!
Why, what's wrong?
That's such a shame. I liked Cressida Kroft.
It's not a fight to the death??
We're fighting her four on one in an arena where she can't kill us.
That means we're meant to learn how strong she is, right from the start of the campaign.
We'll have to fight her again when we're higher-level.
And that one WILL be a fight to the death.
You're getting ahead of yourselves.
Maybe she'll just get worfed on to show some villain's power.
RIP Kroft either way.
Positive energy is in short supply, so we won't break skin.
You win by disarming me or putting me on my back. I win the same way.
I'll stand in the front with the Megapope. She drops one of us, the other makes a Trip attempt and soaks her AoO, Altronus five-foots up and tries four Trips.
After that fails, Choryon makes a trip attempt with her polearm and takes a five-foot step back, Kroft charges and Choryon gets an opportunity attack.
That's four Trip attempts from me and two from Choryon... If she's an 8th level fighter with 20 STR, 12 DEX, and Improved Trip, that's 26 CMD.
We need to bring that number down.
Oh, I know!
We could try tripping her! Prone is -4 AC.
I'll give the pope my net to throw, it's a touch attack.
Choryon can move and flank with Altronus - even if Kroft knocks one of you down, draw a weapon and you'll still threaten.
Sounds like a plan.
After but a moment's quiet consultation, Choryon passes the cleric a folded net to hold in his offhand and the party breaks ranks for the spellcasters to move up front.
Let's roll dice.
Round 1
Lunge.
Whirlwind Attack.
Lyvina, Olin, welcome to the floor.
So much for the plan.
By the way, her bonus to trip is between +8 and +22. Assuming Improved Trip and at least 14 STR, her minimum character level is 4 and her max is 18.
That's a narrow range.
Is there any rule against throwing nets from prone?
And does a 14 hit your Touch?
1) Implicitly.
2) But yes.
Choryon rushes in and sweeps her naginata at the Watch Sergeant's shins.
Does a 15 hit Kroft's Combat Maneuver Defense?
Not a chance.
But you didn't fail by 10 or more.
Her CMD is at least 16 but no higher than 26.
Assuming Improved Trip, at least 14 STR, and at least 10 DEX, her max level is 12.
Moving to flank Kroft without provoking an AoO will take an Acrobatics check against DC 24-or-less.
Altronus will chance it.
He just barely slips past her active defense.
Round 2
32, 17.
Altronus wipes out, Choryon dances out of reach.
Kroft's bonus to Trip is at least +13 and at most +15. Her minimum level is nine, her max is still 12.
Choryon, it's all on you.
Her CMD while entangled is 21 or higher. No, wait! She needs Dodge for Whirlwind attack, and 13 DEX for Dodge.
Her CMD is either 23 or 24.
Your bonus to Trip while flanking is +6.
You need to roll a 17 or higher. Possibly an 18 or higher.
And if you miss the attack, we lose.
As a move action I'll stand on top of Lyvina. Higher ground gives a +1 bonus to hit.
I rolled 15.
Well, we tried our best.
With the help of Altronus harrying the flanks and Olin Mull pulling on the net, standing atop Lyvina Mayyad, Hasagi Choryon's whirling naginata drops Cressida Kroft crashing and clanging to the Vault's stone floor.
What?! How?!
Cressida Kroft has neither 13 DEX nor Dodge. She qualifies for Whirlwind Attack with the feat Artful Dodge.
The combat is over, you're no longer in initiative order.
The four of you level up!
That. Was. Spectacular!
Not that she'll visibly freak out about it.
The picture of Chellish dignity, she.
It's pretty visible, Your Majesty.
That's too many ranks in Sense Motive. Put some back.
Kroft remembers when, fifteen years old, she first saw Vencarlo Orisini fight.
It took her breath like a blow to the stomach, she could feel the beauty in her physical eyes.
She always hated it when her parents would drag her to the opera, but with her mouth hanging open in Orisini Academy Cressida finally understood what they got out of it.
What a curious thing to have common with the Queen.
...Ileosa's so young. Even younger than Cressida was at her age.
It all happened so fast.
Kroft draws her sword. The four assume a battle formation Ileosa cannot see the sense in.
And then... one thing after another!
The Field Marshall crashes into them fast as lightning and heavy as an armored Hellknight makes perfect sense of the formation's ablative armor and Kroft is gone again just as quickly, Ileosa's neck an oiled bearing, mind racing to piece together - Ileosa saw her barrel into the cleric but when the cleric fell he fell forward on his face, and now Kroft's holding her sword by the blade; she hooked the crossguard behind Lyvina's ankle and knocked the wizard on her ass but when.
And then! A dirty trick; scrambling to his knees the Megapope throws an entangling net, and Choryon rushes with her glaive, all grace and power and joy and violence, halfway dancing with her Tian spear. Choryon feints with hips and shoulders, a wild haymaker low to the ground, but instead she swings high to catch Kroft jumping and tangle her legs and foil the landing but the Field Marshall doesn't jump.
And the kasatha sprints and rolls and slides! Light as a shadow and nimble as an osyluth, he leaps an outstretched leg, ducks an outstretched hand, and he's behind Kroft now with four grasping hands for her to bat away.
The Field Marshall whirls her sword and Altronus blocks high but Kroft ducks low and somehow the kasatha's been flipped on his back and in that same moment Kroft is spinning on her heel and lunging in her net and has her sword's tripping hilt behind Choryon's thigh but doesn't have the leverage to pull Choryon over and
Choryon gets free of the bind and steps on Lyvina and Altronus taps the flat of a knife against the Field Marshall's greeve and the cleric yanks his net and
and
and
and!
The way Choryon just walked on a wizard without the slightest pause or reservation is nothing short of incredible.
It seems to confirm what Ileosa suspected: the samurai does not have the normal inhibitions. She'd stab you without flinching if it looked to her like the next step in the dance. Things that others wouldn't even think of to reject just look to Choryon like actions she can or cannot perform, and which will or will not help.
Maybe the Queen is letting her imagination run away with her, but she imagines that this impulsive knight's past is checkered with shallow graves.
Also, implied by the above: Choryon is almost certainly an inveterate liar. Likely she doesn't even think to track what is or isn't true - thinks only in terms of which syllables will have which short-term effect.
You'd be an utter moron to trust her, in nigh any sense of the word.
Ileosa might be in love.
[concern]
For the record, Hasagi "I am a non-ronin lordless wandering samurai" Choryon is both Lawful and Good or Kroft will eat her hat.
And it's a metal hat.
The Tian warrior lives by a code of good conduct and it is immensely important to her.
Or, that's what Cressida Kroft would like to say. That's what she feels in her gut.
But her gut is clearly unreliable.
Because she would have said that these four people while odd were being entirely forthright.
'Oh, we met earlier this morning,' claims party of four that fight together like an oiled machine.
'We don't know each other well,' claim four people comfortable trying to embarrass each other in front of royalty, neither giving offense nor expecting such.
'I'm first-circle with minimal combat experience and no deep faith in the ability of these three people to improvise in tandem with me,' claims wizard who throws herself into melee as a distraction without the faintest trace of apprehension.
'I hardly know these people at all,' claims woman who used other woman as a footstool as if that's not an extremely odd thing to do to a total stranger.
'We don't have shared party culture,' claim the four weirdest people in the Vault despite being weird in twenty of the same ways as one another.
You can spread that on your plants, because it's Grade A hippogriff shit.
What really throws her is that as far as she can tell, as far as they can tell, they aren't lying.
And if they're such great actors as to have her utterly fooled, why leave such giant fucking holes in their story?
With how confused she is, that doesn't count for much with her, but still her brain supplies theories fitted to the evidence.
If they're telling the truth, then what. Their sleeping minds adventured together on the Plane of Dreams?
(Is that even possible outside of stories? She'd ask her wizard but he's dead.)
Or they knew each other in a past life? Samsaran and fey are both supposed to reincarnate, aasimar can be long-lived, and Kroft knows next to nothing about kasatha... though she doesn't think the Tian is actually a fey.
And Golarion is a big place for reincarnations to meet by accident.
Though they could have met on purpose... but Cressida hasn't seen much evidence in her life of divine intervention, outside of choosing clerics and answering communes.
The way she understands it, many gods want to act in Golarion but at cross purposes, and others like Gozreh think no gods should act on Golarion at all. Acting miracles is harder than preventing them, and when all is said and summed the net effect is typically nothing at all.
Perhaps divinities pay closer mind to the great cities and empires outside of Varisia, but if the Good gods were willing to act in Korvosa wouldn't they have stopped the shadows?
Unless they did act in Korvosa, and this was the result.
In Iomedae's ledger, is Korvosa good for Good?
And would Milani shed a tear if the Shoanti killed us all?
Cressida Kroft needs to sleep.
She's catastrophizing.
(Well, it is a catastrophe.)
If she continues in this way she will predictably wake up tomorrow and realize that she has made a terrible mistake.
(If she hasn't made one already - there are any number of candidates.)
But she can't sleep yet, there's too much that's time-sensitive and she can't delegate because all of her people are dead.
While she's positing powerful unlikely adversaries, here's another theory: the four adventurers are cursed amnesiacs, but the procedural memory is still there.
So they meet again and they're like old friends...
But really there's no point in speculating. She's at least 15 gp worth of uncertain and confused, so it's time for another truthtelling.
1d4 → 2.
Altronus, a word in private?
Assuming that sword is at least masterwork quality, she hits me on a 4, and the absolute least damage she could do with it is 1d8+12, which usually kills me in two hits. Also, we know she makes at least two attacks per round.
And we've established that she's going to betray us at some point.
We've established no such thing.
What's wrong, McFly? Chicken?
Without my precious blood bag up front in the lancer perch, in the crumple zone? I'm shaking like a meerkat on Pride Rock.
No way she just mercs you at level 3, right after you finished leveling your character up. Go find out what she has to say.
If I die give my backup character all my stuff.
I want to be clear from the start that I don't think you've knowingly lied to or attempted to mislead me. And yet something very odd is going on. I think it's possible that you've been victim to a terrible crime, or a terrible accident, and I want to get to the bottom of it.
Would it be all right with you if I ask a few questions and verified the answers under truthtelling? You can decline to answer any question that you're not comfortable answering.
Officer, am I being detained?
Not at all!
Whatever it is you think I did, I didn't do it.
Unless it involved four heads of lettuce and a wizard named Irate Vodka, in which case I'm not comfortable answering your questions but also he had it coming.
...A wizard named Irate Vodka?
He used to teach at Livy's school but I already told you I'm not comfortable answering your questions.
Right. I'm sorry.
I plan to ask how you came to live in Korvosa, what you've been doing for work, what you were doing before then, and about how you came to know your friends.
I have some trail mix in my carry-on bag. Do you want me to dig it out and throw it away?
Altronus, you are carrying a gun, four swords, and like a dozen knives and javelins. I think border control is within rights to ask questions.
I'm a Numerian, weapons are part of my religion.
Is that a "yes, I will answer a few harmless questions," or is it a "no, you should talk to somebody else"?
I'm saying "more weight."
But is that a yes, or is it a no.
Ma'am, you won't hear mum from me until I've seen a lawyer.
???
You swiftly locate a barrister. He charges you a golden sail each hour.
I ask him to ask her what I'm being held in suspicion of and the evidence she has against me.
He says that she says that you aren't being held at all, but are instead being interviewed by the former Field Marshall for a position in the Korvosan Guard.
Does the lawyer think I should answer her questions?
He thinks that greatly depends on whether you still want the job.
I do.
I do.
But while I'm talking to her, he should object to any questions I might not want to answer! That way I can stay quiet without it looking like my idea.
O.K.
How old are you, Altronus?
24.
Kasatha reach maturity at 25.
Where are you getting that? I couldn't find it anywhere.
Starfinder Core Rulebook.
Alright, then. 25. Wait. Let's say 30.
Where were you born?
Numeria.
What part of Numeria?
In... you know... in the numerical part...
Starfall! I was born in Starfall, capital of Numeria.
Oh, Cressida is very sorry to hear that. She's heard how the Technic League treat things like kasatha.
Well I... didn't spend so very long in Starfall, I grew up a nomad in the wastes.
Really, I was only in Starfall just long enough to chestburst my way out of Gilbert Ward Kane.
I'm sorry, to what?
Kasatha burst into life like the Kool-Aid Man.
It isn't pretty.
Humans actually do something pretty similar. It's one of the reasons that Kroft never married.
...At some point she stopped saying "hasn't married" and started saying "never married", when did that happen?
...When Cressida was 29 Eodred made her Field Marshall and everyone tittered that she was too young for the job. In retrospect wasn't that just about the last time she was ever too young for anything?
...Why does her mind keep dredging up these irrelevant things at a quarter till four in the fucking A.M.
Anyway, why did Altronus leave Numeria?
You don't have to answer that question.
Then I won't.
How long have you lived in Korvosa and its holdings?
Three years or four.
What have you been doing for work?
Adventuring.
Describe the events as led to your last ten paydays.
Number one is looting that dungeon earlier today, and Altronus would know how to answer for numbers two through ten.
He's teamed up with larger parties for bigger jobs, but never stuck with one group for long.
In between looting old ruins and scoring a long-range assist on a rampaging red reaver, Altronus mostly sold goblin ears to Palin's Cove and Sklar-Quah hair to Malfesh.
Are you the Altronus that you have represented yourself as being?
Yes.
Are you, in addition, anyone else.
...No?
Could you name the day and year that you met each of Lyvina Mayyad, Choryon Hasagi, and Olin Mull?
Whomst?
The Arch Megapope.
Help me out? Altronus would know this.
You met us on the 14th of Neth, 4707.
To your knowledge, are each of the three who they represent themselves as being?
To my knowledge.
Do any of them remind you of someone you knew before you met them?
No...
Do any of them remind you of someone that you met in a dream?
The plot thickens.
Unless I'm forgetting something?
If you are, so are we!
Then, no.
Do they feel oddly familiar to you, as if you'd met in a previous life?
This line of questioning is highly unusual.
Field - Sergeant. Do you feel well?
Well enough. But let's pay a cleric to check both of us for enchantments.
None are visible to detect magic. Have you considered getting some sleep?
Silly cleric, this is Plot shit.
Starfinder says that humans reach maturity at 18 instead of 15, so probably 25 is a slight overestimate for a Pathfinder!kasatha.
Thank you for that vital information, Olivia. In that case Altronus is 29.
But his birthday is tomorrow, so don't bother writing that down.
By your leave, I'll use the wand.
Go right ahead, I have nothing to hide.
Have you been fully honest during this conversation?
No.
A;KLSDJFASJFHWEERKJS;LDFJASLKDFHAS;LDJF'ASJKSDHFIASHDFQWJERHX,D;ASKLJDFKLHAS;FD
LKDFGJADSHGSADFJA;KLFLKJASDFHAKSJDFHASKHDF;AKSDHFASDJFHAS;DFHAS;KLDFHAS;KLDGSD
DLFHASKJLDGFASJKLDFHA;SJDKFHASKJLDGFASLJDFHAS;JKJSWUERYU;UCHGASLFGWefhpuefasdufhwue
sjd;sdfhhsgf;SDJKFHKJADFHK;LASHDFJKGH;KsD;KLCVH;SDHFJKXC;z;CJH:zjhXZBVLxAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
There was a small amount of hyperbole!
Did you say anything substantially untrue or leave out relevant information for the purpose of deception?
I'm hur- I can't belie- How dare you insinuate that I would do such a thing?
But did you or did you not.
I did not say anything substantially untrue, nor left I out relevant information for the purpose of deception.
Thank you for answering my questions, Altronus.
You're very welcome.
Thank you for thanking me.
...Ah.
Altronus wasn't actually offended, nor affronted. He quickly caught on that he hadn't been singled out by her, but continued to be difficult because he thought it was funny. That says some good things about him - compared to the unreasonable alternative - and bad things as well. In this moment it kind of makes her want to strangle him.
Deep breaths, count to ten, try and see through Heaven's eyes. She'll get through this.
Unless Heaven sicced those shadows on her.
In which case she'll - she doesn't know, Nirvana probably has eyes too, she'll borrow those. And look at Heaven with them...?
Altronus feels young.
It's odd. Her first impression of him was of a grizzled ranger, jaded and hard to impress. She doesn't think he's faking it, he isn't faking his threadbare and dusty clothing in its sun-worn reds and black, you can't fake martial competence nor a calculating mind, his descriptions of his last ten paydays sure as Hell came from an experienced hunter, and he certainly isn't faking his cocksure certainty in his own abilities.
Yet beneath that he feels young. It's the strangest thing.
He has something to prove... he wants the world to respect him, and feels that it doesn't. Not odd for a young warrior of great martial skill, much odder for a nigh-30 year old man of great martial skill and long experience. Maybe Kasatha mature more slowly than humans? And like the half-elves she's known, this young man has been through too much, too fast...
The shift of perspective makes patience easier for her, similarly as with Ileosa of Infernal Cheliax.
I'll put all my cards on the table.
When I met the four of you, I took you for experienced adventurers and very old friends. You had the casual ambition, the fearlessness, and the deep trust in each other.
You found a scroll and oil in that dungeon and drew from a conclusion that no one else would - but all four of you were of like mind. You're operating from within the same body of theory, from within the same paradigm and... organizational culture. When you aren't on the same page you quickly get so, following trains of logic that are missing steps to me but which are immediately accepted by your entire party.
You're comfortable trying to embarrass each other.
You look and smile and wince at what your friends are about to say before they've opened their mouths to say it. Where one of you goes the others follow without hesitation.
When you fight together you trust each other to do your parts. Choryon jumped on Lyvina for a tactical advantage and Lyvina comprehended the situation instantly, she didn't buck or slide, she tried to make a good hillock. You studied martial pursuits under different masters and have your different approaches, but in terms of tactics you think along similar lines. It screams to me that you've fought together before, that there's been cross-pollination of ideas; you've created an idiosyncratic whole.
But as far as I could tell you weren't lying. You and your party are sincere in believing that you've only just met.
I checked with Abadar's truthtelling to be sure, but after it all I'm no less confused.
Can you make this make sense?
You've made your point in the most hilarious possible way, and for that I applaud you.
Actually, I'm kind of pissed.
If you have a problem with how we're playing, talk to us outside the game.
Now that Cressida's pointed it out, of course Olin has to notice how weird this is too.
Which raises the question of why he didn't realize earlier, and raises the much bigger question of what, in-universe, is even fucking going on.
That's what she wants to know.
I'm with, uh, I get why Barry is upset, I feel the, I feel similarly but at a lower intensity but that's not strictly the case but there are considerations at play I just want to say that the Game Master does a lot to make this game happen, more than anyone, and, I don't want it to be the case that, I don't want this to be a bad experience, I've been having a lot of fun.
But I don't know how Lyvina is supposed to respond to, to the absolutely true facts that the Watch Sergeant is pointing out, it doesn't...
So, like, we are playing these characters and you're playing the NPCs, who live on Golarion, but, to the characters and NPCs our world doesn't exist, it's past the fourth the wall. And if Golarion is, inconsistent, or low resolution, or it breaks the fourth wall, the characters can't notice that, they live in a detailed world. The way I imagine it is the inconsistent and fourth-wall breaking Golarion that we - speak into existence - is only vaguely pointing at the Golarion that the characters experience, getting it close enough that we can see the general shape and know how the characters feel and act.
But if there's something plot-relevant that relies on information that shouldn't exist, in-universe, that relies on a fourth-wall breaking joke, then - then how do I know what Lyvina should do next?
In-universe we're going to roll back to before the conversation and pretend it never happened.
Bet.
Going forward we'll roleplay a little harder, and be forgiven any fuckups as long as we really try.
Nah.
In universe, it seems like there must be one of: a proper explanation for why we're so different from everyone and alike each other, or it's a wild coincidence, or - or it isn't happening, this is all fourth-wall breaking meta-humor that isn't happening in the detailed Golarion that our characters really live in.
"Really live in."
I want to know what Cresselia thinks is going on.
My leading theory is that you've had your memories tampered with. That it effected each of you implies a common enemy or a dungeon hazard. Possibly in the Thassilonian ruin just explored.
You may have also been level-drained, as in many ways you seem to have the habits of even more dangerous adventurers than you are.
Fifth-circle spells are precious and I don't know when we'll be able to bid on a commune, but at dawn I plan to buy an augury and, if advised, four castings of restoration.
We'll figure out what happened to you.
The Archpope can cast your augury, he just hit second circle. But it's not negative levels, if it were I'd have more feats.
I'm sorry for being difficult with you earlier. I think I had a mental block around even thinking about this, but now you've thrown a brick through it and it's obvious that you're on to something.
You're definitely on to something.
Do you guys remember that dungeon we hit level 2 in?
Of course they do, and in excruciating detail.
When the Archpope gets stone shape we should check what was behind that rubble.
But in the meantime they'll do that bodyguarding thing so Cressida Kroft can get on solving Korvosa's other time-sensitive problems.
This whole thing with those fucking guys took longer than I thought it would! We're eighteen pages in, wow.
Meal, poor (per day) 1 sp
Meal, common (per day) 3 sp
Meal, good (per day) 5 sp
By the Core Rulebook, three common meals to feed you for a day will cost three Korvosan silver shields, and eating poorly costs 1sp.
You do, however, need a vendor.
The Vault, surrounded by shadows, isn't exactly bursting at the seams with amber fields of grain.
Korvosa is, as the old saw goes, at most nine meals from anarchy.
Fortunately, Golarion is a world of magic and bewonderment.
The Core Rulebook also has this to say:
Spellcasting Caster level x spell level x 10 gp
Teleporting food in is pretty much right out. You can't build a teleport logistics network in a day. There's likely no place in Golarion - and certainly no place within his teleport distance - that Salgar Irevotnin could roll up and buy the 3,229 pounds of flour (65 gp) it'd take to feed Korvosa for a day, all packaged for a literal hundred castings of shrink object (impossible at any price, but in theory 15,000 gp) or, more reasonably, packaged to be carried by a 90 gp team of 30 gp ponies each buffed with bull's strength for six teleports and three round trips.
And if the Academae Deans (plural because Salgar alone couldn't can't cast six 5th-circle spells) were hypothetically being paid for their hypothetical services the listed price is something like 3,000 gp for the teleports and 1,350 for the bull's strength. All to transport 65 gp in flour so Korvosa could feast on wheatpaste glue.
Create food and water is a third-circle cleric spell that feeds 15 people per casting.
Absent any repeating spell traps, that's not really going to put a dent in the problem.
But do not despair:
Mage's Magnificent Mansion
School conjuration (creation); Level sorcerer/wizard 7
You conjure up an extra-dimensional dwelling that has a single entrance on the plane from which the spell was cast. The entry point looks like a faint shimmering in the air that is 4 feet wide and 8 feet high. Only those you designate may enter the mansion, and the portal is shut and made invisible behind you when you enter. You may open it again from your own side at will. Once observers have passed beyond the entrance, they are in a magnificent foyer with numerous chambers beyond. The atmosphere is clean, fresh, and warm.
You can create any floor plan you desire to the limit of the spell’s effect. The place is furnished and contains sufficient foodstuffs to serve a nine-course banquet to a dozen people per caster level. A staff of near-transparent servants (as many as two per caster level), liveried and obedient, wait upon all who enter.
Banquets are for celebrations, so let's split nine courses between three people and call them square meals instead.
For 910 gp you can hire a 13th level wizard to make 234 gp worth of foodstuffs.
That isn't typically a winning trade, nor at all sustainable in the long term, but the Korvosans in the Vault can't eat gold. A casting of Mage's Magnificent Mansion can feed 468 people.
Or, assuming that no one will starve on one "Meal, good" a day, 1404 people. Korvosa has 3,229 people left, so it'd only take four castings of the spell. 3640 gp.
You do, however, need a vendor.
Not every town or village has a spellcaster of sufficient level to cast any spell. In general, you must travel to a small town (or larger settlement) to be reasonably assured of finding a spellcaster capable of casting 1st-level spells, a large town for 2nd-level spells, a small city for 3rd- or 4thlevel spells, a large city for 5th- or 6th-level spells, and a metropolis for 7th- or 8th-level spells. Even a metropolis isn’t guaranteed to have a local spellcaster able to cast 9th-level spells.
With a population of 18,486, Korvosa was a large city.
But despite its unfavorable location in provincial Varisia - more than a month by ship from Westcrown and too distant from Absalom for a 5th-circle wizard to cross in one teleport - Korvosa has long punched above its weight when it comes to what arcane magic is for sale. Volshyenek opened his Academae two hundred and thirty years ago, when Korvosa was even smaller than circa 4706, and from that fiefdom peddled 9th-circle wishes for the next hundred and thirty four years.
And then Aroden died in 4606, and Golarion was devastated by a year without a harvest. There was civil unrest, and thousands of exiled or dissatisfied Korvosans fled to Magnimar. The Shoanti, hunters and herders less effected by the ruined harvest, saw weakness in the Chellish colonies that they hadn't in a hundred years. At some point in chaotic 4607 Lord Volshyenek Ornelos was murdered by a legion of invading devils from out of Hell. Cheliax had its own problems, and had no attention to spare a province six weeks by sail over turbulent seas.
For the hundred years since 4607, little Korvosa has been without a 9th-circle arcane caster. They've usually been without an 8th-circle wizard, and for long stretches they've gone without 7th-circle arcane spells too. But the institutions that Volshyenek built had deep roots; the Academae proved a tenacious and perennial plant, attracting wizards of power and raising wizards to power.
The mightiest among them in the current day was the Headmaster of the Academy himself, Heir to the Eternal Lord, Lord Toff Ornelos, who alone of Korvosa's permanent residents could cast 7th-circle wizard spells and 8th.
But then,
With a population of 3,229, Korvosa is a large town. Supposedly it should lack 3rd-circle spells.
This is not the case.
Sure, many of Korvosa's wizards died last night. Death ward isn't a wizard spell, and wizards aren't known for their Strength scores. Most were weak to begin with and suffered age penalties, which begin at 35 and intensify at 53 and 70. Wizards that survived their first six seconds after being jumped by a shadow seldom made it through the next six.
Most of the spells that Korvosa's wizards prepared, not expecting a desperate fight in the middle of the night against incorporeal undead, were in the event pretty useless.
The median Korvosan wizard gets three or fewer spells per day. They have jobs to work; if a first-level wizard prepped combat spells with no plan to ever use them, who would pay them? And for what?
The fraction of Korvosa's wizards with combat spells don't fair much better - sleep will save you from a mugger in a dark ally, black tentacles will do much the same and with far more style, and neither will have any effect on a shadow.
But expeditious retreat, invisibility, beast shape I, dimension door? None guarantee survival, and not everyone had such a spell prepared. But for Korvosa's 3rd-circles, the odds weren't terrible.
And the teleport-capable Deans of the Academae were only ever in as much danger as they chose to be.
The Guard has been expanded and can keep the peace without her getting physically involved - check.
She's gone over the Guard's finances with the Field Marshall and the Queen and has an estimate of their assets - check.
Look at all of these circular dependencies ironing themselves out. You love to see it.
Next on her list...
Time to go bother the Pathfinders.
The most senior Pathfinder here is Aram Zey, a sixth-circle Pathfinder Savant, who was also the first Pathfinder on the scene. Aram is a controversial figure in Korvosa, and everywhere else in the Inner Sea that wizards congregate. His treatise A Discourse on the Foundations of Arcanism is considered a work of revolutionary genius by a third of Korvosa's wizards, considered by another third to be both tasteless and deranged, and by the final third as being too obvious to be worth talking about. Julaei Cangi, the Academae's Dean of Abjuration, personally invited Zey to test his trap ward at the Academae's Breaching Festival, which Zey read as a transparent threat on his life. Since then he's tried to stay out of Korvosa.
There's talk of making him the Master of Spells at the Pathfinder Grand Lodge, but honestly if it comes to it he'd rather run Cangi's gauntlet.
Kroft heard earlier that the Pathfinders were invited into the city by Lord Ornelos, and on his dime. She'd like to know what it is he's paying them to do, whether they're free to take on other jobs, and also if they know whether Lord Ornelos is alive somewhere out there.
They've been taking on other jobs, and will take on more in the morning. People are still teleporting in, Aram thinks it'll be days yet before Korvosa hits Peak Adventurer. There's a lot of profitable work to do and the shadows enforce a slow pace doing them; death ward is scarce and lasts less than ten minutes, when Korvosa takes more than 20 minutes to cross unenhanced if you're just trying to cross it. The Pathfinders will have to set up forward camps if they want to get anything done.
The Academae Master is alive and well. Aram heard through his telepathic bond that an Absalom cleric reached him through sending. The headmaster says he'll return to Korvosa in the morning; it seems likely that he ran out of teleports somewhere and has to spend the night. Toff Ornelos has a truly freakish number of teleports, it's one of his tricks, but probably he doesn't have a literally infinite amount.
(It's not one of his tricks. Toff Ornelos comes by his "freakish" number of teleports the way Aram comes by his paltry two. Except Toff gets three times more castings of the spell, because he's the better wizard.)
(Okay, well, it's mostly that, but in emergencies Toff has been known to supplement his prepared spells with ten castings in a rechargeable staff.)
(And three castings in these Boots of Teleportation he nicked off a dead fighter. Honestly, he plans to sell them, they aren't worth 50,000 gp to him. He's just never gotten around to it.)
(Maybe he'll donate them to Lastwall, his alignment could likely use the help after the burning of Endrin Isle.)
(Toff's Ring of Sustenance lets him teleport once a week or so; it was the best effect he could figure out how to add without taking the ring off his finger. But that doesn't count, it's only once a week.)
(And he carries a scroll of teleport, obviously. You wouldn't want to need one and not have one.)
She's not sure that she's approaching these things in a sensible order but her mind is like molasses and she's just going to knock "this absolutely must be done"s off her list until she runs out of them. A few questions for Aram Zey:
She heard from him earlier that his people were adequate to hold the Vault. Have there been any developments which change or complicate that?
In the long run it'd be good to have a less tenebrous solution to blocking the doorway.
Each of the bound shadows answers to a different unvetted and ill-coordinated master, and that's an accident waiting to happen.
Other than that, though, they're doing fine.
Is there a spell that could block the door? And then if they didn't need the shadows, they could clear them out with a holy word or dictum. Maybe from a scroll, they could teleport out to buy one, if this is too urgent to wait for morning and Darb Tuttle's new spells.
Stone shape.
Blocking the door selectively, is a bit of a harder problem. No suitable spell for it comes to Zey's mind, but he'd be surprised if the Academae's Julaei Cangi doesn't have ideas. Cangi disagrees with Zey about the foundations of arcanism, though, so if Kroft wants to know what she's up to she'll have to talk to the abjurer herself.
Wizards, amiright?
Aren't you a...?
Speaking of sealing the exit.
A person can survive 3 weeks without food, 3 days without water, 3 minutes without air, and 3 rounds without shelter. So it made sense at the time to focus on getting shelter without worrying too much about the quality of what she was breathing. Korvosa's Vaults are surprisingly well ventilated, and the Guard regularly patrols them in groups of 2d4[1]. That said, now that they've sealed all the entrances and exits save one (and she's even weighing the pros and cons of sealing that one too), she'd like to know now whether the Vault is building up a dangerous level of phlogiston saturation.
-
1. Guide to Korvosa, page 64. ↩
You'd do well in the Society.
There are some bellied tunnels in the Vault itself which should be monitored for bad air low to the ground. If necessary they could be cordoned off, or straightened - but in all likelihood they're harmless.
The air quality seems Green enough to Zey. Most of the Vault is natural limestone cave, which tends to be porous and breathe well even after you've closed every crack large enough for a shadow.
Well, maybe it doesn't breathe well, no underground enclosed space with thousands of people in it really does, but it breathes well enough by the standards of underground vaults. The nighttime sea breeze pushes dephlogistonated air through the entry tunnel on its way to Golarion's surface; when the sun rises and the land breeze begins it'll get even stuffier in the Vault (if also warmer, to the gratitude of those accustomed to an Inner Sea climate) but no one will suffocate. Unless they close off the last big hole.
Third question:
What are the Pathfinders planning to do with their spell slots? Is there anyone here with open 7th-circle arcane spells? Korvosa has gold, but can't eat it. If there's no one here that can cast magnificent mansion, she heard that Zey's in contact with Absalom by telepathic bond - can they bring a seventh-circle in, or, could she pay Zey to pay his contact to pay a cleric to send Toff and ask him whether he plans to check how his recommendation to flee into the Vaults has worked for Korvosa? If there's already a 7th-circle here for their own purposes, or Toff's coming back anyway, she doesn't want to have to pay for a 7th-circle wizard to cast defensive spells and have defensive spells cast on them, teleport to whatever part of Korvosa they're familiar with (or wherever the mishap puts them, if they aren't very familiar with the city), come down here, cast probably-fewer-than-the-four-necessary mage's mansions, possibly pay another 7th-circle wizard to do the same thing, and then retain them in the Vault for the foreseeable future. That sounds like it would get very expensive very very quickly.
Aram Zey is the highest-circle wizard the Pathfinders have in Korvosa; there was a 7th-circle sorcerer who was here earlier and will be again tomorrow - he teleported home - but he can't do magnificent mansions.
Zey can, however, get a sending sent to Toff Ornelos, and if that fails they can see about hiring a 7th-circle from out of town.
Alright, let's get that done.
Toff should research a spell to trace back a sending and ignite the idiot caster
"For this you woke me? Breakfast on bile, sup on stone to flesh. I will return in the fullness of time. Do not wake me."
And back to sleep.
Gods.
Stone to Flesh
School transmutation; Level sorcerer/wizard 6
Target one petrified creature or a cylinder of stone from 1 ft. to 3 t. in diameter and up to 10 ft. long
Duration instantaneous
Stone to flesh is a sixth-circle spell that creates a 4,413.8 lbs cylinder of flesh.
More than enough to feed all of Korvosa.
Wait, then why do people raise livestock at all? The average weight of a bull sold for slaughter is between 400 and 800 lbs[1], sixty percent of which is edible, or about 360 lbs. One casting of stone to flesh creates as much meat as, what, 12 cattle?
Cattle sell for 10 sails a head, or 120 gp, compared to stone to flesh that costs... 660 gp. Hm. She does wonder what spell sets the price for 6th-circle slots, and how great the demand is for it... she knows that 6th circle wizards don't earn 600 gp a day...
No, no, sanity check here. A pound of meat has got to be worth at least the price of a poor meal, most people can't eat meat every day. 4,414 lbs of flesh is 4,414 silver is 440 gp. Is the value add of an abattoir really triple that of the animal? That can't be right, cattle are assets, they produce milk and plow fields. Probably she just has the wrong number for how much a head of cattle sells for? Yeah, that's probably it.
So stone to flesh produces at least 440 sails' worth of food.
-
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_breeding#History ↩
(660 is a bigger number than 440, so this whole economy all makes perfect sense. Certainly 6th-circle wizards wouldn't lower their prices if they had the opportunity to mint hundreds of gp every single day for three seconds of work. That's not the number printed in the book.)
660 is a bigger number than 440, but not by all that much. That feels like the sort of explanation that would fall apart if she looked more closely at it, too fragile for a lasting equilibrium.
...A widened stone to flesh would create, hm, more than 35,300 lbs of flesh, equivalent to a herd of 98 cattle. You'd pay off the metamagic rod in 16 castings of the spell, and thereafter make 3,530 gp per casting, up to like 10600 gp per day.
Not in practice, in practice you'd exhaust demand in the big cities and have to lower your prices and/or move on, chasing smaller and smaller margins - but surely you'd still make more than 660 gp per casting.
Should Cressida take out a loan from the Bank of Abadar right this very second and set out printing social utility and cold hard cash? Is Toff's offhand comment the most important thing to happen on the 14th of Neth 4707 AR, and the fall of Korvosa but the second?
If Lyvina wanted to start poking holes in the campaign setting or, heaven forbid, outperforming the Wealth By Level chart, stone to flesh of all places is not where she'd begin. That's not even where she'd start if she were on a tight budget and specifically wanted to totally deprecate hunting and gathering and agriculture.
Like, Cressida, have you ever read the Bestiaries and taken note of which creatures can Regenerate? If not, you should do that now, just in case you ever need to bootstrap post-scarcity with stone-age technology.
If Lyvina knew what Kroft was thinking about, she'd find it somewhat funny and more than a little charming. It's like Cressida Kroft woke up one day and suddenly realized that she lives in a world without thermodynamics; a little baby munchkin that discovered their first exploit. But after you've discovered a few more, it's hard to dodge the realization that in a world of magic it requires an active and heroic effort from everyone involved to keep a campaign setting from imploding.
In many ways it would be easier to not. By Lyvina's lights the default thing for a wizard to do is devour their lightcone.
Not that this Exponential Wizard would so much as dream of going Full Henderson on Pharasma's fragile little bubble!
Unless she somehow came to believe it must either be remade or destroyed.
And yet hunting and gathering and agriculture sure do look non-deprecated, as yet.
The spells that are known to wizards produced the world which she knows, so if it looks to her like the world can't hang together this way clearly there's something she's missing.
It all has to add up to normality.
Right?
FLESH made from STONE is not FIT for CONSUMPTION.
What about after a purify food and drink?
FLESH made from STONE is STILL NOT FIT for CONSUMPTION.
Is it good for bloodmeal, fertilizer?
FLESH made from STONE will POISON YOUR PLANTS.
Okay, then someone needs to tell Toff Ornelos this and to get his ass back to Korvosa.
I'm certain he already knows. The man is one of the greatest wizards alive.
I don't know him well but from context clues I think he only said it to be mean.
Oh.
Cressida Kroft needs sleep.
She tries to think if there's anything else she needs with the Pathfinders, decides that if there is she'll just come back (the Pathfinder wizard probably got his 2 hours of sleep earlier today, right?) and for now she'll go talk to Julaei Cangi, and come back to talk with Aram if there's a reason to come back and talk with Aram. She thanks the mercenary for his bravery and beneficence, as well as his time.
Dean of Abjuration Julaei Cangi (LG female human abjurer 12): As head of the Hall of Wards, Master Cangi is ever concerned with the protection of the school grounds and the students, teachers, and staff within, and takes her job very seriously.[1]
Cangi is one of the mightiest wizards in Korvosa and far and away the most powerful of the Academae's Good aligned faculty. As Field Marshall, Cressida Kroft preferred to go through Cangi when she needed something of Korvosa's wizarding school or its wizards. Unfortunately, ever since Master Cangi brought to light Toff's tampering with the Breaching Festival, and after the ensuing investigation revealed (among so, so many other things) a conspiracy of devils abducting students under the Headmaster's own nose, the embarrassed Lord Ornelos has largely shut his Dean of Abjuration out of decision making and done everything he legally could to persuade the tenured professor to quit.
-
1. Academy of Secrets, page 30. ↩
But Headmaster Ornelos isn't here right now, and to the people of the Vault, Master Cangi is perhaps the single person most audibly responsible for saving their lives.
The grandmotherly old schoolteacher has emerged among the wizards of the Vault as a natural person to look towards for leadership.
Many of the same wizards who can reshape reality with a standard action need to be handheld through things like sharing their rope tricks with each other. In some ways coordinating Korvosa's spellcasters isn't that different from how she spends her office hours typically; the wizards skew older than her students but are approximately as likely to all-on-their-own think up out-of-the-box strategies like asking whether, if they need sleep so badly, and their spellbook is upstairs, they can prepare the spell out of someone else's spellbook.
The Dean of Abjuration doesn't know where her own spellbook is, it's being passed around. Some people don't turn pages by the corner and she thought it better for her heart if she didn't watch.
There is a type of person who can survive any hardship and set aside any level of mental anguish as long as people are relying on them.
Julaei Cangi is, by nature, emphatically not one of those people.
But at her level when she casts the spell heroism it lasts two hours, which works nearly as well.
After the Breaching Festival Julaei found herself sliding into a place where she cast heroism on herself six or seven times a day. And then she went a month where she stopped preparing it altogether, because the temptation to cast it was too great if she did. And then she made a rule for herself that she could prepare heroism as long as she never prepared it in a fourth-circle slot, and that's worked for her so far.
So it is that Julaei Cangi meets Cressida Kroft with the brave face turned on. She has 700 rounds left on the spell, and hopes to be asleep when it wears off. Hello Cressida Kroft I'm so sorry about Ileosa none of this is your fault no one thinks it is Ileosa is unreasonable what can I do for you?
I need to buy a dozen scries to check on Korvosa's holdings and see if the Shoanti Burn Riders are asleep in their beds. I should have done that forever ago, it's incredibly urgent.
No one has sent her to say they're under attack, but no news is not necessarily good news.
The Burn Riders are asleep.
It seems not all of the shadows stopped at Korvosa's city walls, but the damage is reasonably local. It looks like people across Conqueror's Bay in Veldraine are on alert, and villagers are evacuating into city, but they must be operating on a Sable Company warning; the shadows are as yet far away and won't cross the distance before dawn absent a deliberate push to do so.
An hour from now (scrying takes an hour to cast) Cressida will heave a sigh of relief. Though she's going to need someone to liaison with the Sklar-Quah in the morning and rescind Eodred's ultimatum if she wants sustained relief on this count...
Maybe it's better to leave Eodred dead for a bit while they hammer that out, and then she can present it to him fait accompli.
Before that, though,
Next order of business: I was wondering if you had an idea for sealing the Vault against the active dead, without restricting airflow and in such a way that the living can get in and out unharmed? Or if you have a different idea for air we could do that instead.
Ideally a solution we can implement immediately, but if you've got one that will take four weeks to set up I'll still hear you out; gods know how long we'll have people stuck down here. If it's possible to do for less than 34,450 gp that would be really really convenient to me.
This is a very constrained problem to solve.
The first thing they need to do is cut a groove ten feet deep into the walls of the tunnel using stone shape, and slot into the groove a ringing 12,500 gp permanent wall of force. Otherwise, no matter what defenses they dream up, the shadows will just go around them through the walls. All the abjurations and magical traps in the world are as shit if there are any walls which aren't ten feet thick or doors which aren't ringed with walls of force.
Even that won't protect against all incorporeal undead - for instance, a Huge-size ghost or shadow could still just go around - but it looks like a good solution to the threats they expect to face.
But then, that's what she thought after the Hall of Wards was safe against ethereal wizards and lone ghosts, so if Cressida has another 25,000 sails going spare they could bar the door to a dire dread wraith, if those are a thing. Or bar the walls, anyway; none of this protects the door. Barring the walls to a Gargantuan-size undead would cost exponentially more and seems like fence-post security - at that point someone with magic is optimizing against your specific defenses and the thing to do is dispel or suppress their magic, else they'll just find the nearest unblocked path... but that's what she thought yesterday about incorporeal creatures in general. The Hall of Wards was so, so very prepared to defend against an ethereal wizard or someone magic jarred into an allip, or even a single powerful ghost.
They couldn't have stopped Geb but they could have made him work for it.
This might be an ignorant question, but why not smooth the tunnel a bit with stone shape, give it some right angles, and set the wall of force flush with the four walls of the tunnel? Seems like that way one wall should be long enough to stop anything less than thirty feet long from ghosting through the floor.
That was an ignorant question, but Cangi has nearly infinite patience for those even when she's not heroic up to her gills.
"Walls of force form flat, vertical planes."
Oh, that'd explain it. Lingering curiosity: you said vertical. Do you mean vertical relative to the caster, or...?
WALL OF FORCE makes a WALL. It goes UP and DOWN, not SIDE to SIDE.
Up and down relative to what?
RELATIVE to the VERTICAL AXIS.
That does not remotely answer my question.
WALL OF FORCE is not called CEILING OF FORCE. CEILING OF FORCE would be a DIFFERENT SPELL.
What happens if you cast wall of force while floating in the Black Tapestry? Or a plane with subjective gravity?
WALL OF FORCE is not EFFECTED by GRAVITY.
Gravity is an entire DIFFERENT thing.
WALL OF FORCE is an UNANCHORED VERTICAL WALL.
Relative. To. What??
People have their theories, but the only way to know is raw empiricism; you have to cast the spell or one like it and see the orientation. Under normal conditions on Golarion, though, it nearly always corresponds to our common-sense conception of up and down.
It's no wonder that wizards go mad.
Anyway, cut the grooves, insert the walls. After that they need to protect the door.
There is no spell nor magic item known to her which could reliably do it for a long enough duration. Forbiddance comes closest, but Master Cangi doesn't think it really works for this.
She toyed with the idea of using a succession of four LN forbiddances cast by Darb Tuttle, each Maximized from a rod for 18 damage against an incorporeal CE creature on a successful save, each with a ring of force to make shadows pass through them, as would cost 56,000 gp in material components alone but likely kill even the greater shadows. Even that, though...
To start with, Forbiddance is an inherently dangerous spell to put in a public area. It damages anyone whose alignment doesn't match the spell, unless they speak a password before entering. Un-Maximized, the damage may not be much by the standards of a shadow or experienced veteran (the main purpose of the spell is to block interdimensional travel), but it's more than enough to cook 90% of humanoids.
It's considered best practice in Lastwall (a place that uses the spell heavily) to put forbiddance, where necessary and when possible, behind a door painted in red and white stripes. (Julaei thinks Lastwall uses different colors for rare non-lawful and non-good forbiddances, but doesn't know the details of their schema.) Or failing that, to put the spell's effect behind a line on the floor painted those colors. For all their caution, Lastwall still has accidents every year where someone melts themself for the sin of absentmindedness or stupidity or fumbling lips that mangle the password. Or when someone's alignment shifts by a step without their realizing it.
Still, cooking a few Korvosans would be pretty minor as prices go to keep every shadow and greater shadow out of the Vault, if it weren't for the larger problem: whatever password they put on the forbiddance, anyone entering will have to speak aloud. Lingering shadows that hear it could just follow through on their coattails.
So, she doesn't know any spells that are going to cut it here. This is a job for an automatically resetting magical trap.
[spluttering Otolmens noises]
Cressida listens to Julaei Cangi's wizard noises about how creating magical traps is objectively harder than creating any other sort of wondrous item, about how many spells can't be made to stabilize in the form of a trap even if they look like they should, about how traps often require material components not required by the original spell, about how traps which emulate spells quickly degrade if activated repeatedly in a short period of time or if not allowed to dissipate energy, and Kroft is treated to a lecture on how you can spend your entire life working with traps that emulate Summon Monster 3 and at the end of it all you'll still have things to learn, and then there's this whole tangent about why an automatically resetting trap of create food and water is the proverbial Philosopher's Stone for crafters of magical traps and has been since the days Emperor Tippendius the First reigned in Oppara, as yet with no success, and then she hears about how there's an obscure Cleric spell called anti-incorporeal shell the utility of which is sharply limited by its hemispherical shape that incorporeal beings can burrow under and up through but perhaps if the shell were recessed into the ground and then mostly filled with shaped stone? or of course Cangi could base the trap off undeath ward though it's a much higher circle and at that point Cressida Kroft interrupts to ask how long the defense would take to construct and how much it would cost. She doesn't need the whole History and Future of Humanity here.
Between 20,000 gp and 111,000 gp, and at least 3 weeks if it's possible at all - though in all likelihood it is. Still, with magic traps you can never really know.
Okay. Let's call that Plan 'C'. What's plan 'A'?
Are Cressida Kroft and Master Cangi open to a private conversation by message? Because I was eavesdropping and I think I can help you seal the door.
I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a Cyphermage in Riddleport who says they've recovered the lost secret to using permanency with phase door[1]. They haven't been able to test it, it'd take at least 15,000 gp in diamond dust and an eighth-circle to cast the permanency, but I saw a piece of the spell diagram and I think it's legit.
We'd have to find some way to fix the air, but that strikes me as an easier problem than keeping the shadows out.
Don't bandy your new knowings about; I was sworn to secrecy on all of this.
-
1. Pathfinder Core Rulebook, Page 320. It's a Core spell, I missed that you could make it permanent. Point at me and laugh. ↩
Cressida Kroft never been happier to suddenly be in debt to a member of a criminal conspiracy.
(The Order of Cyphers are a secretive sect of wizards based out of Riddleport. Until it's been proven otherwise in comprehensive detail, it's safe to assume that they're a criminal conspiracy.)
...If Ileosa gives her guff about paying the Cypher Mage to keep incentives aligned, she'll find some way to make it up to the person.
Parting words for Master Cangi: Cressida knows that the wizards of the Vault are going to be looking to remodel the thing once they've had a chance to prepare stone shape. It looks like some people have already done a little bit of that. Cressida Kroft has plans for the Vault too, plans which include a sensible street plan and common areas and air flow and a usable latrine and hiring a military architect to make sure that remodeling the Vault makes it easier to defend rather than much harder.
It'd be good for efficiency if Korvosa's wizards held off on implementing their plans until after they've hashed out how they fit into hers, so no one's using limited spells per day to tear down anyone else's house.
That's all for now.
Take care of yourself, Julaei.
All right.
It's time for Kroft to sleep.
Disassembling her armor takes a few minutes. It'd go faster with assistance, but getting assistance would take longer than doing it herself, so.
After two days wearing it[1], getting out of the plate harness is a weight off her shoulders. And she can finally stretch and scratch her back.
...She's going to put her expensive magic armor in a Bag of Holding, along with her coin purse and most of her other things, and use the Bag as a pillow, is what she's going to do.
...If she dumps the armor in the Bag it'll take an eternity to reassemble.
But that's a problem for Future Cressida, into the bag everything goes!
Maybe she won't even put the armor on tomorrow, she doesn't have a horse down here and against shadows it only slows her down.
She's drifting off the moment she lies down. She'll sleep for an hour and a half, an hour forty-five... no, better make it the full two hours.
-
1. For more on Cressida Kroft's terrible sleep habits, see Curse of the Crimson Throne: Edge of Anarchy. ↩
They're an eventful two hours.
<Child. What is your purpose in preparing that spell?>
<Today I choose to go unnoticed and uncontrolled.>
<Your wizardry goes wasted. Already I ward your mind against intrusion.>
<In generosity, I spare you that effort. Your secret is safe while I breathe. Stay out of my matters.>
Mind blank.
Yeah, no.
That's not going to fly.
-
While disaster struck Westcrown some time ago, Aram Zey is the first in Varisia to know.
Westcrown, City of Twilight.
The rumored birthplace and mortal home of the dead god Aroden, the one-time seat of his empire on Earth, and the place of his prophesied return. It's been dying a death by slow decay.
Population:
100,900 humans,
8,000 halflings,
5,800 "other,"
and,
well.
Our story begins in Rova, 4676 AR[1]. The Westcrown Pathfinder lodge was struck by calamity, and from the haunted building dark insubstantial beings began hunting the streets.
Westcrown has no Field Sergeant Cressida Kroft, and no Sable Company: the government downplayed and ignored the growing shadowpocalypse for months[2]. Their eventual response was characteristically geriatric[3], and attained little save dead dottari guardsmen.
The Wescrani civilians had more vital energy: they found scapegoats in a pair of Nidalese sailors, who they burned in broad daylight[4]. To the predictable lack of effect[5].
Having tried everything that came to mind for them to try, Westcrown imposed its famous nightly curfew, which for thirty years the shadows have enforced[6]. Life went on. With the dying of the day's light, businesses shutter and lanterns are lit in homes. But every week there's another story of some new deadly attack[7], and everyone knows someone who has lost someone.
-
1. Council of Thieves, Bastards of Erebus, page 52 ↩
2. Council of Thieves, Bastards of Erebus, page 52 ↩
3. Council of Thieves, Bastards of Erebus, page 52 ↩
4. Council of Thieves, Bastards of Erebus, page 52 ↩
5. Council of Thieves, Bastards of Erebus, page 52 ↩
6. Council of Thieves, Bastards of Erebus, page 52 ↩
7. Council of Thieves, Bastards of Erebus, page 52 ↩
Note that there are 52 weeks in a year, and 1,560 weeks in thirty years. Just, to throw a number out there.
On the 13th of Neth, 4707 AR, just before midnight, the power which kept Westcrown’s hungry and mobile shadows from entering Wescrani homes was broken.
And the rest, you can guess.
-
Castle Korvosa has undergone some changes, as have its prior inhabitants.
I'm King Eodred Arabasti.
King.
I give the orders, around here.
No you don't.
It's true, he doesn't.
He can't make any sense of it.
His mind feels clearer than it has been in a long time. He feels more aware, he feels more alive. Call it the difference between a WIS 10/CHA 11 human with their best years behind them, and a WIS 12/CHA 15 immortal.
He's undead now. He gets that. He'll have to hide it if he wants to continue ruling Korvosa.
He ate Neolandus Kalepopulus. That was illegal. But it's going to be fine because he made the seneschal promise not to tell anyone Eodred was the one who did it.
But here's the part that doesn't add up.
Tawniela is undead too. She doesn't have any leverage over him.
She's his.
His harem slave. Absolutely she cannot give him orders.
Plaintively, he repeats himself to her. He's King Eodred Arabasti. King.
Tawnelia tells him to wash the floors until they shine. His hands don't work for that. She tells him to do it anyway.
He tries to make Neolandus do it but Tawnelia says to do it himself. His hands don't work for that.
She tells him to do it anyway. He used to think she was prettier when she was angry but it's different when she can make him suffer instead of only try.
He's King Eodred Arabasti.
Isn't he?
Overland flight.
Mage armor.
Darkvision.
Hide from undead.
Shield.
Greater scrying.
Greater invisibility.
Teleport.
Command undead.
Do you want to leave this place, King Arabasti, and escape far away with me?
Does he ever!
Stand very still, my friend, and I will take you away.
Teleport.
The teleport placed them, midair, near a sheer cliff-face high in the snowy Mindspins. It is starkly beautiful, and the cold does not bother him.
There's a shelter built into the cliff, shaped from the stone. Eodred moves towards it.
"Eodred Arabasti."
...Yes?
Trap the soul.
Togomor chuckles to himself as he opens the door and enters his cliffside bolthole.
That went rather well, he thinks.
It's even colder inside; his breath steams like a kettle. In the corner there's a dented iron bucket full of black marbles.
He drops another in for the collection.
It makes a satisfying clinking sound.
The bucket's looking pretty full. He should probably dump it out on the ethereal plane.
As a child growing up, Ileosa Arvanxi looked up to her teenage neighbor, Lady Kayltanya Vyeron. They abruptly fell out of contact when the adults of House Arvanxi hired the Red Mantis assassins to murder the Veryon daughters, and Kayltanya survived only by joining that elusive organization.
But the two friends reconnected last year. Ileosa, then eighteen and ten months married into House Arabasti, found herself curious and able to act on it. She began by hiring a cleric to send "Kayltanya Vyeron", which to her mild surprise just worked.
Kayltanya had, in the meantime, risen high in the Red Mantis hierarchy. When the two met and traded tales of woe, Kayltanya floated the idea to Ileosa that Ileosa just kill her husband. The Red Mantis don't assassinate those they see as legitimate rulers, but Kayltanya had no compunctions against supplying Ileosa with poison to do it herself, nor connecting her with the mercenary wizard Togomor who would keep Eodred from ressurecting.
Ileosa demurred, unready to take that step. But if Eodred died by accident, perhaps then Togomor could work his arts?
In the early hours of the 14th of Neth, King Eodred was killed by a shadow. Kayltanya somehow learned of this - not too surprising, the Mantis have ears among the Pathfinders - and paid Togomor to bind the man's soul. Eodred was, after all, no longer a king, and no longer safe against Mantis blades.
Because that's what friends do.
This sequence of events fully explains Togomor's presence in the city.
Togomor is greedy, as is his secret master Sermignatto the Belier.
Korovsa is an unguarded trove of treasure.
That will fully explain Togomor's decision to stay in the area.
It's entirely plausible.
Few are the gods who watch all events closely, but there are Outside eyes on Korvosa now, and They are but little distracted by events in Westcrown.
Observations and inferences percolate upwards through Heaven and downwards through Hell.
The verdict?
Togomor and Sermignatto visiting Korvosa is 1.1 times as likely in worlds where one called Volshyenek the Eternal is still active in Korvosa.
How seriously you take that depends on your prior odds that he survived his death, and how deeply you would care if he did.
It's a bigger risk than he likes to take.
Volshyenek has very little control over events, now, unless he wishes to further tip his hand.
But Togomor has an existing rivalry with Toff Ornelos. His hemotheurgy makes the bloatmage unstable, and puts pressure on his brain.
Sermignatto is an asset.
They won't need Volshyenek's direction to work to his advantage.
Unless, of course, this misadventure ends with two eighth-circle wizards harboring grudges against him.
As is possible, though not likely.
The odds of that and other bad outcomes are factored into the "1.1 times as likely."
And the dawn breaks over a shattered city.
For all the darkness of the night, it shines out the clearer.
In the Vault below, the unseen sun is still welcomed by clerics praying and wizards at their books.
Dean of Evocation Salgar Irevotnin (LN male human evoker 10 11): Dean Irevotnin has a reputation for ending arcane duels with deadly force, and uses this fact to maintain order in the classroom, threatening disobedient students with a single round of combat if they don't behave.
His mind afire, Salgar Irevotnin prepares sixth-circle contingency and repulsion.
Every hour since the stroke of midnight has marked the new lowest point in the Dean of Evocation's life, but this, this does put a smile if briefly on his face.
Dean of Necromancy Orianna Delmore (LN NE female human necromancer 10 11): Rumors attribute Dean Delmore's constant foul mood to failed attempts to attain lichdom.
"Salgar Irevotnin," crows Delmore, closing her book with a flourish. "Mighty evoker that you be. Which pathetic 5th-circle spells did you elect to prepare today in your pathetic 5th-circle slots?"
"I see you also made 6th-circle." He sounds none too happy of it.
"Not even your predictable homiletics can ruin my good mood. But you're welcome to lay them on me!"
Salgar states his case levelly and simply, to better serve the ears of a fool. "Not once in any history known to me has a lich resurrected sought to replace their phylactery. Not a once."
"In five thousand years," the giddy Necromancer laughs, "my memory of this conversation will be all that is left of you. Say something fiery, Salgar, leave me one glowing coal. Or else vanish, your fire spent."
He won't rise to it. "My legacy is secure. I have children."
"Do you, though? Do you still?"
Salgar snaps. "Yes, I do still. If you seek eternity you'd be wise to watch your mouth; I very nearly murdered you."
"Good for you, papa. My mother had a daughter. She tried to raise me right. The results are as you see. But surely you'll do better, and all your sons' sons and daughters for a hundred hundred years."
"Duel me. Cancel your raise dead policy and duel me. I'll allow you the first spell."
"You missed your calling as a circus clown, funny man. I'll cherish this moment forever, Salgar."
He turns his back and strides away.
Orianna calls after him: "You were working on contingency; can I prepare it from your book? You can prepare age resistance out of mine, today or whenever you have a slot free."
....
Yeah, alright, he'll take that trade.
The people of Korvosa are in higher spirits now.
Not high spirits, but higher. Watching the wizards at their books and hearing the clerics at their prayers was good for morale, and so was the Vault's subsequent stone shaping.
And somewhere up above them the shining sun drives the darkness away.
With their mages juiced up on all the right magic spells, is there anything they can't do?
Disaster in Westcrown. A hundred thousand dead.
The world will not rally around Korvosa, every person and nation fears for itself.
Aram Zey will be here and there playing taxi, but the bulk of the Pathfinders are returning to Absalom or their homes elsewhere for the foreseeable future.
Oh, I see now.
It's an end of the world scenario.
This "Westcrown" place won't be the last.
[panic]
The resplendent and dignified Archbanker of Abadar helps to calm the crowd.
He'll light some incense and play thirteen questions with Abadar.
No sense in anyone fretting before he's even done that.
There is a silence in the Vault. Korvosa waits with bated breath.
Tuttle lowers himself to sit on the stone floor in the most stately fashion. Rearranges his robes. Closes his eyes.
Grasps his holy symbol - it's a key, he's old fashioned - and prays.
Was there another shadow attack with greater than 500 causalities last night on Golarion, besides the simultaneous attacks in Korvosa and Westcrown?
Yes.
More than five such attacks?
Yes.
More than a hundred?
No.
More than fifty?
Unclear.
Will the shadow-related deaths last night appear as a clear outlier compared to other nights, a month from now?
No.
Were these attacks precipitated by the action of a god?
...No?
Would the attacks cease upon the death of an entity or destruction of a faction, within the powers of the Worldwound Alliance to kill or destroy?
No.
Darb Tuttle's face crumples and tears leak from his eyes. He rocks back and forth and emits a low anguished groan.
[PANIC]
Those could be happy tears.
Nope, end of the world.
Is it a good idea for me to travel to Sothis and seek audience with the Pharoah?
Yes.
Should I invest in 'Portfolio A', as described on the parchment folded in my breast pocket, as contrasted to other enumerated options on selfsame parchment?
No.
Portfolio B?
Yes.
Portfolio B1?
No.
Portfolio B4?
Yes.
Should I spend another commune on investment questions?
No.
Tuttle's got to go talk to the Pharaoh in Sothis.
He'll tell Ornher Reebs which questions he asked in case Reebs wants to follow them up with Asmodeus.
Greater teleport.
Archbishop Reebs' mouth feels quite dry. He'll light the incense.
Korvosa and Westcrown, two Chellish cities, makes for a suspicious pattern.
Are the forces of Good responsible for this and does it advantage You to tell me?
No.
He wants to collapse in relief. Not that you could ever tell it by looking.
Switching to the other branch of the decision tree:
Are Rovagug or one of his spawn involved, and does it advantage You to tell me?
Yes.
He wants to collapse in horror.[1] There's a slight frown on his face.
Is the Rough Beast, Rovagug the Worldbreaker, directly responsible, and does it advantage You to tell me?
Yes.
Are there any other gods working with Rovagug, and does it advantage You to tell me?
Yes.
Are You?
No.
He's not supposed to feel relieved at that.
Is it a Good god and now in Your advantage to tell me so?
Yes.
Fuck.
Is it Iomedae?
No.
Is a Chaotic Good deity?
Yes.
Is it Milani?
Yes.
Is it in your interest that I share this information?
Yes.
Should I think on Your answers and ask another commune?
Yes.
-
1. If you think this is an astonishingly useful inference to pluck from thin air, so did I. These questions are mostly from QTesserect, and a few from Eva_. ↩
Fifteen minutes to prepare the spell into an empty fifth-circle slot, another ten to cast it.
The whole time people scream questions at him and the whole time Reebs ignores them.
Is Milani the only significant deity working with Rovagug, and is it to Your advantage to tell me this?
No.
Are there Lawful deities working with Rovagug, if that's in Your advantage to say?
Yes.
Zon-Kuthon, then.
Are there any non-Evil Lawful deities, if that is in Your advantage to say?
Yes.
Is it worth me trying to narrow down which other deities, if any, are involved?
No.
Will the attacks continue to chiefly be shadows, and is it in your advantage to tell me this?
Unclear.
Is it to your advantage that your clerics oppose Rovagug in this, rather than secure ourselves from harm?
Yes.
Should I leave Korvosa to work with Your church in Cheliax more closely?
No.
Is it to your advantage that I request resources of Hell to be spent on Korvosa's security and prosperity?
Yes.
Is it to your advantage that I cooperate with Lawful churches and Lawful governments in combating the shadows or Rovagug?
Yes.
Is it to your advantage that I share the answers you've given to me at my discretion?
Yes.
Is it worth another commune to ask further questions?
No.
What did He say? What did He say?
Why does public speaking better rattle him than dealing with devils? Oh, that's right, because it's much higher stakes.
The Archbishop wishes he put more ranks in Perform (oratory).
If it were anything good Reebs would just tell us.
"THE PRINCE OF HELL HAS HEARD OUR PRAYERS."
The Vault stills.
"People of Korvosa.
Your high degree of intelligence, and courage, permits me present to every ear those matters which in other lands are discussed by inner rings behind closed doors.
It is right for you to take pride in this.
As there is much to say, I will be brief.
There are dark days ahead for all Golarion.
The plague of shadows will not stop. Tens of thousands, every night. Kingdoms will fall, and nations.
We must put all our efforts into defending this Vault; there is nowhere else to go.
If Korvosa's wizards and nobles were to scatter to the winds, each would die in their time, hunted and alone.
Woven thread is stronger than a single strand; only together can we survive.
Shadows are not the only threat we face.
In the shadows' esurience I saw reflected that of the Worldbreaker. I suspected the hand of that most ancient foe, the Rough Beast, yes, even Rovagug.
Asmodeus has confirmed it. Our world's demise was plotted in the depths of the Dead Vault."
Pause for dramatic effect.
If you're going to pause for dramatic effect, we'll fill the silence ourselves.
Because that's the worst possible news.
"BUT THAT! PLAN! FAILED!
WE LIVE. WE WITHSTAND.
Today you will eat well.
Tonight you will sleep in comfortable beds.
In time we will reclaim our homes.
LET THE ROUGH BEAST THRASH WITHIN HIS CAGE!
All Golarion may crumble around us. We withstand.
But the Rough Beast did not act alone.
In this horror He was joined by the barbaric Prince of Pain, Zon-Kuthon!
By Milani, the bloody Everbloom!
And by unnamed others, even Lawful gods that throw in faithlessly with Chaos and Evil.
Better gods defend us. Iomedae. Asmodeus. Abadar. Pharasma.
Yes, even Iomedae, yes, even Asmodeus.
We are not alone!
Hell offers to support us, as it does Cheliax.
There are difficult days ahead for all of Golarion.
But by the strength of our Law, through commitment to order and discipline, we will prevail.
Korvosans are courageous, obedient, powerful, intelligent, and we act with one will.
Against the forces of Chaotic Evil, our victory is certain.
All I have said is true to my knowledge."
Not that he was particularly careful separating observation from inference.
"That is all."
Group huddle: the guy preaching Fascism with the big red pentagram on his shirt. That's a bad guy, right?
Oh, definitely. That's the Archbishop of Asmodeus in Korvosa, he's the Arch Megapope's number one rival.
Asmodeus, I mean.
Reebs is just some guy, whatever.
So, follow up question. Does that mean that these Everybloom and Prince of Pain characters are the good guys?
Everbloom is, Prince of Pain isn't. The confusing thing here is that there are apparently Good gods and Evil gods on both sides of the conflict.
Stating the obvious here, but the ones who look like villains at first are going to wind up the heroes we side with.
That's maybe too obvious. It could be a double bluff.
20 dollars against 2 says it's not.
Do we know which side Cayden and Ragathiel are on?
You want to outsource your moral reasoning to an NPC?
I'd at least hear Him out! He's 3 points smarter than I am, and 2 points more Wise.
But mostly I'm just curious.
What are the gods doing, anyway? I'd sort of expect having gods on our side to look at least a little different from the conspicuous absence of any and all gods on our side.
Surely they're not too busy to notice that the whole world is ending.
Am I the only person who read the setting document.
I read it!
The simplified version for mortals is that the gods are mostly in one big stalemate, because counterspelling each other's miracles takes a lower level spell with no material components. So if a god does something, that means that none of the other gods care enough to stop them and it was probably still hugely expensive to get through.
So, followup question. How did the big bug gug and his shadow-siding compeers get away with whatever it is they got away with?
Best not to pull that thread.
Why not?
You were listening?!
I am standing right here. Why is it best not to pull that thread?
Uh, I guess it's just that I didn't expect anything useful to come of it. Gods are confusing.
But maybe we should think about it anyways, if you think it's a good idea.
So.
The world's ending.
How can Chellish Varisia survive this?
That's not exactly her job to think about, anymore, but she doubts anyone else is on top of it.
[Otolmens misplaced her brain and somehow mistook square miles for miles squared, if you want to see the original tag click "see history."]
[since I'm already editing tags maybe I'll come back and add jokes here later]
[if this tag is still here that means I never did that]
[this could save your life: Electricity flows from high voltage to low through the most conductive material available (you). If you stand across a voltage difference, it will flow up one leg, through your body, and down the other. So near a ground fault (like a downed power line), don't take big steps or stand with your feet far apart! Shuffle away with your feet together.]
[I've been told to say that you should obviously stay in your car if you have a car and that is an option.]
[one of my favorite papers ever is David Denkenberger's "Interventions that May Prevent or Mollify Supervolcanic Eruptions." Most people are like "oh no, a supervolcanic eruption would be catastrophic. Sure hope I never see one." It's defeatist, is what it is. But not Denkenberger, oh no - he says we should (or should prepare to) pile sediment or water on top of Yellowstone National Park to weigh it down, or stitch the earth together with steel so even a supervolcano can't rend it. That's the human spirit.]
[I learned the word esurient from this short story - The Anticipator, by Morely Roberts. It's a delightful read.]
[it's an incredibly long read and might not be your thing, but I find the author commentary on El Goonish Shive to be uniquely fascinating and useful. The person who writes it has been doing it for more than twenty years, and obviously has gotten much better over that time. At some point they went back and added commentary to all the early strips, and it's only place on the internet I know where someone who's hugely skilled at their craft sits down and dissects a novice's work (and explains how the novice could have gotten the effect that they were trying for!)]
[wow, I didn't expect this to blow up like it did, you should check out my merch and listen to my soundcloud.]
Varisia, despite Ileosa's claims to the contrary, is not a backwater - rather, it's civilization's very frontier. That frontier hasn't exactly been expanding at a rapid clip, of late, but Cressida's always held the conviction that Varisia will in time be tamed. That's just the march of progress.
Most Korvosans don't live in Korvosa the city. There are about 200,000 Korvosans in Varisia, not counting Magnimar and its holdings, which she at their insistence will not.
(...Okay, Cressida Kroft totally counts Magnimar and its holdings. And even if she didn't she'd still count Ilsurian, to do otherwise is just silliness. No, Magnimar can't have everything north of Lake Syrantula, that's stupid. But... she'll circle back to rescuing the people under odious Magnimar's dubious protection after she figures out what she's doing for the People and State she works for.)
Varisia is very much a frontier, though. You can think of Chellish Varisia as a set of concentric semicircles - layered, like a cake or a parfait.
The first layer is composed of the great markets and industrial centers of the coast: Korvosa itself, where the Jeggare River feeds into Conquerer's Bay, Veldraine, 45 miles across the bay, and smog-choked Palin's Cove, 50 miles up the coast from Veldraine at the mouth of the Falcon River.
Everyone must eat. The coastal towns and cities, with their collective tens of thousands, create a tremendous demand for produce. That demand, as much as any god or other power, defines the lives of every man and woman and child in Varisia.
The second layer is high-density food production.
Near enough to the great markets to sell things which are hard to make at scale and which spoil quickly; here you see vegetables grown, and fruit, and dairy cows kept on small lots. This second layer is a relatively thin film that hugs the coast, but it isn't evenly spread; it radiates from the sea in fractal spokes, clinging to roads and especially the rivers. Distance is measured in hours, not in miles; the time it takes to reach the market by foot or cart or ship is much more important than mere spatial proximity.
The third layer is hinterland.
In most parts of Golarion, peasants cluster in villages. Farmers are concerned foremost with resilience; they farm multiple small plots spread across different microclimates to protect themselves against erratic weather, they defend each other from monsters (23 1st-level commoners makes for a CR 7 encounter, and not every peasant farmer is a 1st-level commoner: villagers can handle themselves), they rely on lateral relationships with other farmers to survive disaster, giving charity and receiving it in turn...
And what they grow, they eat.
You are unlikely to get rich through peasant farming, that's really not how it works. Peasants are hard-working by necessity, but they aren't any harder working than is useful.
That'd just see taxes raised on them.
Absent punishing taxes, less than 10% of Golarion's produce finds its way to coastal market cities.
(This description of Golarion isn't as descriptive of Varisia; Varisia is a frontier, and that brings with it social mobility, and large homesteads that haven't yet been divided by generations of inheritance, and diligence that is rewarded. It's still pretty descriptive of Varisia.)
The hinterland covers the fertile ground between the Yondabakari and Sarwin River, between the Sarwin and Falcon, between the Falcon and Jeggare. It stretches further up the rivers towards their sources, since distance is counted by the hour and grain-laden barges float downstream, and to the roads.
The fourth layer is marginal land used for ranching. Animals need a lot of space, and can walk themselves to the market.
The fifth layer is true wilderness, with its hunters and trappers and prospectors and iconoclasts.
Roughly 200,000 Korvosans, all of whom live within 200ish miles of each other. A motivated shadow could cross 90 miles in 8 hours, though it doesn't look like any of them spread that far last night.
She isn't clear on why shadows choose to attack or not (She has so many questions - is it possible that the Wescrani type, with their motivating hunger, are a different breed than Varisian shadows, which seem mostly content to sit in old dungeons? How often do shadows feed in Geb? Are shadows like vampires, which can feed without killing should they choose?) but if each shadow in Korvosa wanted to eat every night, and each shadow so spawned also sought a victim, the constraining factor would be how far the shadows can travel per night along the built-up roads and rivers.
Call it... seven days, call it a week, for them to get as far north as Sirathu.
She needs a plan that's ready and implemented by tonight.
There are things Kroft wants to try or further consider (if the shadows only go out at night, perhaps shelters with thick and uncracked walls (if they got hungry enough would they attack during the day?) could hold them at bay - could a firebreak hastily burned between Veldraine and Korvosa stop the shadows meandering from house to house? - could the shadows be appeased with animals? - criminals? - ogres? - trolls? - would a shadow's touch kill a troll? it isn't fire or acid - could ten thousand shadows feed on one troll indefinitely? Would they get anything out of it?) but she sees Master Oriana Delmore muttering something and is filled with a horrible dread at the thought of Delmore teleporting away. Step one of literally any plan is to convince Korvosa's remaining teleport-capable wizards not to bail on her.
Reebs recognized that right away and At Least Tried. Good man.
Well, Evil man, but... with locally correct priorities.
(There aren't many teleport-capable wizards among Korvosa's dead, but there sure are any among Korvosa's fled.
The city yet retains: Aram Zey, Julaei Cangi, Salgar Irevotnin, Orianna Delmore, the Dean of Transmutation Elgin Remorri, an Ulfen Academae student named Maganrad that Kroft recognizes from the Breaching Festival fiasco, Tepest Geezlebottle of Theumanexus College, probably some of the Academae professors that she knows less well but likely no more than five of them, some unaffiliated wizards that she doesn't necessarily know but likely no more than five of them, Toff Ornelos hopefully some time soon, and, honorable mention, Zenobia Zenderholm the 5th-circle cleric of Abadar.)
She'll take the stage from Archbishop Reebs, provide a carrot to his stick.
"Lord Ornelos is on his way back. He has a better solution to the door, and for food and air and light.
There is a lot that needs to be done while there's light to do it in.
Today I'll be busy salvaging Korvosa's hinterland. I'll need many of your help.
While we're doing that, we'll build a fort as secure as the Vault but on the surface, and before Neth's out we'll be back above ground permanently.
5th-circle wizards should talk with Sabina Merrin or myself so we can figure out together how stupid rich today is going to make them.
Dismissed."
Hey, Sergeant Spotlight Hog.
Dismissed to fucking where.
Force of habit!
It just slipped out!!
Alright.
Lyvina? I'm gratified to hear that you hold my opinion in greater esteem than that of, say, General Vengeance.
This conversation is not over, but Ileosa needs to go take the stage from Cressida Kroft and say a few words so people don't get the wrong impression about who's in charge here.
She doesn't have anything prepped, but that's fine, Ileosa's a bard. She can do spontaneous.
Something something the state of our union is strong.
Violent crime peaked last night and has been trending down ever since. GDP per capita has never been higher. Freedom House gave Korvosa a perfect score; four points out of four on every question.
For real, though. It really sucks that we were hit in the first night of the global shadowpocalypse. Westcrown too. Ileosa has family in Westcrown. By the way, she'll return to that point a couple times so people can see that she's a sympathetic character. Widow here, maybe an orphan too! Feel sorry for her, she's crying. Real tears, too, actual factual water. She learned how to do that in school. ANYWAY. The upshot, though, of being the first, is that we apparently won't be the last. So maybe this is something that everywhere will go through, but we get longer than anyone else to recover, eh?
Ileosa has a vision for Korvosa. A vision where Korvosa bounces back faster than anyone thinks is possible. Reebs said that Hell was going to help, that's a very good start. Ileosa would like to get other help too, though, because long-term dependence on Hell seems like a bad idea. She's got a few different plans there. They are in the works.
(And she's going to make a mental note to ask Reebs what kind of price she could get for selling her soul, but not say that part out loud. She figures she's damned anyway, being a noble from Cheliax.)
While the world crumbles, Korvosa should scramble to secure its preeminence in the new world to come. They'll stop the bleeding in Korvosa's hinterland, and find a permanent way to protect Chellish Varisia. She's forming a committee to look into weapons that will work on shadows; it's possible they could research a spell or purchase magic weapons from Hell.
We'll raise an army ten thousand strong. Korvosa should fold Magnimar under its protection, form a League with Janderhoff, Riddleport, Kaer Maga, and extract dues.
Ileosa envisions Korvosa as a point of light in the darkness, a new center of gravity in a transformed Inner Sea.
Your speech might have gone over better had one of the following attained:
1) Anyone here had eaten breakfast.
2) Anyone here liked you.
3) You had any credibility with these people.
4) You had a vision that sounds less delusional.
5) You'd rolled above a ten.
Well, you can't win them all.
I liked it!!
Thanks, Sabina.
Ileosa had more to say but can at least read a room. She'll wait until she has a meal or a win to package it with.
If anyone has anything to say they should bring it to Field Marshall Sabina Merrin or Seneschal Corbastia Lettice.
...Okay, sure.
I am fully equipped to field anythings to say from the entire angry city, including its nobility and wizards, owing to my experience peeling potatoes. I am well aware that I was selected by Sabina Merrin to hold this high office because of my unique skills, character, and competence. Rather than, hypothetically, out of perceived personal loyalty towards one Ileosa Arabasti and a proven inability to ever tell her no.
Furthermore, even were I manifestly unqualified for anything more complicated than shuttling dishes back and forth from the laundry wizard, I am by nature an extroverted and gregarious person, with a strong will in the face of social pressure and a mind like a steel trap. And so I, even inexperienced, would have a natural aptitude for Seneschal-dom which experience would only further augment. Rather than, hypothetically, being a standoffish and unsociable misophoniac who folds in on herself at the slightest pressure and is easily pushed around.
Also I know how to read, which will probably be useful for this job. I hope that someone will present me with something to read, and tell me I must read it, because I will then read it.
Also I am filled with justified confidence and a zen calm, on account of all these true things which are true and which I know to be true. Rather than, hypothetically, a state of internal panic.
If someone casts detect anxieties on me and loses the spell, I'm warning you in advance it's because I rolled a 26 for Wisdom.
If Ileosa is done talking I'm off to beg Master Delmore not to take half our bound shadows with her when she cuts and runs. Or to at least wait a few hours for Toff Ornelos to fix the door.
And Ileosa is going to go talk to her personal guard. She has Questions.
And Togomor will take a crack at burglarizing the Hall of Wards.
What? A scene shift? Togomor, can't it wait? I think people have been excited to see Ileosa grilling the PCs.
I promise I'll be quick.
Why do you want to break into the Hall of Wards, anyway?
I hear there's a prize.
...There isn't.
The Breaching Festival is usually on the last Sunday of Desnus, you missed it by five months. And after the fiasco earlier this year who even knows if we'll ever have another. Plus, the prize pool's already been cleaned out.
Ah, well, nonetheless.
I approach the Hall of Wards from the air.
What does arcane sight see from 120 feet away?
Do you also have see invisibility?
Naturally.
You see an all-concealing bank of fog.
...is that somehow an invisible fog?
To your arcane sight it appears thoroughly nonmagical.
I wasn't born yesterday.
Is that. Somehow. An. Invisible. Fog.
Nope.
It's invisible flame drake lymph.
Dried, powdered, warded against fire and the elements, transmuted down to one 4,000th of its original volume and mass, and hung in the air as a particulate. Now, this piece of trivia is slightly obscure, but Togomor may know in his capacity as an alchemist that flame drake lymph explodes violently on contact with air.
Or water.
Or flame drake lymph.
An antimagic field, or careless greater dispel magic, if cast here -
- would rattle the ceiling of the Vault.
And if he turned off his see invisibility, he'd be blind to all the invisible traps and monsters he presumes are currently hiding from him in the mist.
And out what he spent to make see invisibility permanent.
...Togomor will table his burglary-related plans for the time being.
But he will be back.
Next time, try the door.
Back to our heroes!
Ileosa started getting the impression that there was something deeply odd about the people charged with guarding her body... well, from the word go, but it intensified over time.
A few minutes ago it came to a head. Quite rapidly, in fact.
"Group huddle," began The Fool, here played by Altronus the Numerian kasatha, as he entered stage left.
"The guy preaching Fascism with the big red pentagram on his shirt. That's a bad guy, right?"
The church of Asmodeus in Korvosa is perhaps less overtly evil in its presentation than the one in mainland Cheliax, which is itself less overtly evil than the all-the-scariest-and-most-viscerally-unpleasant-parts-presented-in-rapid-succession version of the church which non-Asmodeans pick up from Hell's enemies. So it's not too strange to Ileosa that something that Ornher Reebs said doesn't square with one of Altronus's prejudices, or that he's calling a group huddle to make sense of that.
"Oh, definitely," said the Megapope, "that's the Archbishop of Asmodeus in Korvosa, he's my number one rival. Asmodeus, I mean. Reebs is just some guy, whatever."
What a hilarious thing for the man to say. Well, not really, but sure, spit your placid defiance, Mr. I Have No Fear Because No One Taught Me What Fear Is And I'm Too Dumb To Figure It Out Myself.
"So, follow up question. Does that mean that these Everybloom and Prince of Pain characters are the good guys?"
And that's where the first wheel falls off the cart.
What kind of logic is that?
And Altronus has never heard of Milani or Zon-Kuthon?
"Everbloom is, Prince of Pain isn't. The confusing thing here is that there are apparently Good gods and Evil gods on both sides of the conflict."
The pope thinks Altronus's question was a natural one to ask. Well... that's the impression she gets, but she should try asking him something stupid to see if he's just Like That.
"Stating the obvious here, but the ones who look like villains at first are going to wind up the heroes we side with."
What?
...
No, what??
Why would it be obvious that the ones who look like villains are secretly heroic? Most people who look like villains aren't secretly heroic??
And this battle is between the gods, why does Choryon think it matters who she "sides with"?
Monarchs and archmages will fight like dogs beneath the table for falling bones and scraps.
...Does Choryon think the world runs on story-book logic and that she's - no, does she think they, the four people who ostensibly met in the early hours of this morning - are the main characters?
"That's maybe too obvious. It could be a double bluff."
A double bluff by who?? Do you think the gods are... putting on a show for you??? Or, is Altronus just humoring Choryon? Running with the joke or running with the delusion? That would make more sense because it minimizes the number of crazy people... except Altronus started first...
"My silver against your copper says it's not."
Try this theory on for size. The cleric of Cayden Cailean is, like all clerics, a psychological outlier. He says funny things like that Asmodeus is his rival, and maybe believes them. The other three start adventuring with the cleric, and he says things like that, and they all learn to play along because they like how he responds if they do or don't like how he responds if they don't.
This is a good theory because it reduces the number of delusional people in the group to just the one.
Actually, now that she's thought of it, it's obviously correct. What a relief.
(Though isn't it a bit odd how realistically they pretend to defer to him in his areas of imagined expertise? If Ileosa squashes this misgiving, it happens too quickly for her to notice.)
Also, implied by the theory is that Lyvina likely disapproves of the way those two are winding the cleric up - the wizard is too kind and earnest for such shenanigans.
It's nice to be predicting things again instead of rolling bewildered with the punches, and Ileosa is going to look at Lyvina's face to confirm that the samsaran is upset.
"Do we know which side Cayden and Ragathiel are on?"
The samsaran looks grave, apparently she's got bigger things on her mind than her compatriot's tomfoolery. But that's not terribly off-model, her question is an important one for a cleric to ask, probably that's what was on her mind while the others were clowning around.
"You want to outsource your moral reasoning to someone outside our group?"
Says Altronus in tones of sheer incredulity and that is not an act.
"I'd at least hear Him out! He's 3 points smarter than I am, and 2 points more Wise. But mostly I'm just curious."
Zero reverence whatsoever. Lyvina used the godpronoun as a joke, to emphasize the inherent absurdity in caring what someone outside their group thinks. Even if that Someone is her god.
Also Lyvina thinks she knows Ragathiel's Intelligence score and Wisdom, and thinks her own within spitting distance.
"What are the gods doing, anyway? I'd sort of expect having gods on our side to look at least a little different from the conspicuous absence of any and all gods on our side. Surely they're not too busy to notice that the whole world is ending."
Ileosa has wondered that herself.
"The simplified version for mortals is that the gods are mostly in one big stalemate, because counterspelling each other's miracles takes a lower level spell with no material components. So if a god does something, that means that none of the other gods care enough to stop them and it was probably still hugely expensive to get through."
Eh? Is that how it works?
"So, followup question. How did the big bug gug and his shadow-siding compeers get away with whatever it is they got away with?"
...Yeah, actually, how did they. That's a very good question and for some reason Ileosa halfway expects Lyvina Mayyad to answer it out of hand.
"Best not to pull that thread."
WHY. NOT.
"You were listening?!"
Yes, she was listening?? She's standing right here!! What is their reason for not asking that question, what is their logic for it, what is the pattern here she can't see it.
"I am standing right here. Why is it best not to pull that thread?"
"Uh, I guess it's just that I didn't expect anything useful to come of it. Gods are confusing.
But maybe we should think about it anyways, if - "
if?
"you think it's a good idea."
"...I'm gratified to hear that you hold my opinion in greater esteem than that of, say, General Vengeance."
And then
"Lord Ornelos is on his way back. He has a better solution to the door, and for food and air and light.
There is a lot that needs to be done while there's light to do it in.
Today I'll be busy salvaging Korvosa's hinterland. I'll need many of your help.
While we're doing that, we'll build a fort as secure as the Vault but on the surface, and before Neth's out we'll be back above ground permanently.
5th-circle wizards should talk with Sabina Merrin or myself so we can figure out together how stupid rich today is going to make them.
Dismissed."
and Ileosa had to go up and say something inspiring, but after that she's coming back to figure out what the deal is with her bodyguards. Oh, but she'll wait just a second for them to forget she exists again.
So they don't realize anything's amiss when she steps out of their field of view just a moment, to get detect thoughts running.
Ileosa scans them with Detect Thoughts.
1st Round: Presence or absence of thoughts (from conscious creatures with Intelligence scores of 1 or higher).
2nd Round: Number of thinking minds and the Intelligence score of each. If the highest Intelligence is 26 or higher (and at least 10 points higher than your own Intelligence score), you are stunned for 1 round and the spell ends. This spell does not let you determine the location of the thinking minds if you can’t see the creatures whose thoughts you are detecting.
3rd Round: Surface thoughts of any mind in the area. A target’s Will save prevents you from reading its thoughts, and you must cast detect thoughts again to have another chance. Creatures of animal intelligence (Int 1 or 2) have simple, instinctual thoughts.
Altronus: INT 15
The Caydenite: INT 14
Lyvina: INT 20
Choryon: INT 7
....Those are some deeply baffling numbers.
He knows it's strange, but there's a good explanation.
Altronus's 15 INT did not particularly leap out at her.
Ileosa thinks she would have noticed if Choryon only had 7 Intelligence?
Intelligence as measured by detect thoughts correlates very well with potential for wizardry, quite well with mathematical ability and verbal proficiency, and if it doesn't correlate perfectly with what you would call general smarts - especially not above 15 INT or below 5 - she's never met someone with 7 INT who seemed notably clever. Choryon seemed clever. She would have guessed that Choryon had at least twelve Intelligence. Even ten, she could swallow, INT scores don't correlate that well with skill at language.
Seven?
(Ileosa would be a little less baffled if she knew any ogres with high Charisma; many of the factors of stupidity which in humans correlate with a low INT score are in fact correlates and not components of Intelligence. And Choryon, if she's even human, is visibly not entirely so. Still. Seven.)
That Lyvina is a once-in-a-generation math whiz who gets two bonus first-circle spells without a headband on doesn't feel nearly as strange to her, but that's pretty damn strange too. Lyvina seems clever, but not "this is as smart as people get" clever. Though maybe it'd be hard for Ileosa to tell, if she were?
Now take these two weird things and put them both in the radius of one detect thoughts. Usually when you cast detect thoughts you don't get two anomalies like that.
Call it a hunch, but Ileosa thinks that when she knows what these four people have in common, these four who met each other yesterday but wouldn't dream of outsourcing moral reasoning to anyone outside their group... when Ileosa knows what makes them a group, that 7 and that 20 will make more sense to her too.
Um, guys? I just made a Will save.
Same here.
I just made one too.
I felt no such hostile tingle.
I enter Bloodrage as a free action! And does a 13 confirm against your CMD?!
Does it need to?
Grapple him, Choryon!
Go for the gun!
You grapple him, I'll go for the gun!
Blessing of the Faithful for a +2 bonus! Go, Barry, go, go, go!
What's a 25 against your CMD while grappled?
"Sufficient."
Jesus.
You can have my gun, just keep your finger off that trigger.
Why?
Basic gun safety?
The bullets he loads into it cost a buck twenty per, plus crafting time.
Barry gets me.
So, Altronus. It's your turn. Any sharp objects that you care to stab me with?
Later, maybe. For now I'm holding up.
.........wait WHAT ABOUT QUEEN ILEOSA?
:Facepalm:
We are the worst bodyguards ever.
She's over here! She looks like she's fine!
I cast protection from evil on her!
I cast detect magic and check her for enchantments.
None, but there is a divination.
Lyvina, I'm seeing a divination aura. Spellcraft it for me?
I'll save her the cantrip. That divination is the spell detect thoughts, which I cast because you four were acting so godsdamn weird.
You could have warned us, first.
If I'd known you were going to flip out about it like this, believe me I would have!
By the way, Ileosa's Charisma is at least +3 and at most +6, unless she has Spell Focus Divination or something.
So you're reading my mind.
What's that like?
It's like - tilting, falling, face-first into something vast and fast-moving and incredibly complicated,
tilting and falling into a thousand years of missing context compressed like the iron crystal core of a planet and
forced through the view-port of her skull, her brain torn, distended,
like falling face-first into something big and fast-moving and incredibly complicated, and it's made of knives, optimized to hurt,
surging forward to meet you, presenting all its edged surfaces one after another in rapid succession, that competitive and predatory mind bouncing and rebounding from thought to related thought,
looking for a safe surface, a flat surface?, no, looking for one that's sharp enough to kill her and the only mercy is that Altronus gets no feedback from her and he doesn't know what worked, how much it worked, so he moves on to present other weapons for her consideration one after another after another and she keeps her expression neutral.
Altronus does this out of malice but not of hatred, out of ambient malice, background malice, out of reflex, Altronus has the reflex when his mind is read to destroy the interloper, to destroy them out of curiosity.
To destroy them if he can, to see if he can.
And it's working.
Godconcepts, is the only word she has, godconcepts, mixed piecemeal with the mundane horrible, Goatse acausal threats ███████████ jury nullification Jesus factory farming continuity of self will she die if she falls asleep here's a toenail peeling off and I'll ███████████████ nail your fingers together ███████████████ nazism fascism Thor: Love and Thunder communism liberalism genetics computation pain real bad pain evolution moloch why industrial revolutions end in horror chain reactions two girls one cup ███████ nuclear weapons Boltzman brains ████████████ all the things you think matter don't and I can prove it to you tell me what you love and I will prove it here is what Altronus thinks eight billion people would make if given the chance can Altronus crush her with the weight of it?
Amidst the horror there is - momentous power, which Altronus flings about casually, unthinkingly, but which would catapult her to the greatest heights -
The sane thing to do is to pull herself away, dismiss the spell, sever the connection. Ileosa struggles to find the wherewithal.
In the end she doesn't need to, because Altronus recedes, apologetic.
Quick exercise: try not to think of all the things you shouldn't think of without thinking of them. Doesn't really work, does it? Leastwise, not for Altronus.
Sorry about that.
"What's it like, you wonder? It's like falling face-first into Hell."
I'm blushing. That's without a doubt the nicest thing that anyone has ever said to me.
"What in the Abyss are you?"
A kasatha.
"We should hunt them to extinction."
Make a holiday of it, be home by Christmas.
Altronus is... unthreatened.
Perpetually unthreatened.
Altronus is "that's adorable" directed at other people.
Ileosa is catching up to something that he already knows, which is one of the few things which can stave off his constant low-grade annoyance, but if she doesn't reach the right conclusions he'll write her off entirely.
(This is somewhat problematic, because he is insane, and who knows what insane conclusion he expects from her?)
...But Altronus doesn't think that the other kasatha are like him. He in fact thinks it hilarious that someone might alight on the "his mind is strange because he's a literal alien" explanation because Altronus-the-alien was the only one who failed his saving throw in that circle of four, and doesn't think that Ileosa would attribute his oddness to kasathatude had Choryon had failed her save too. He's more like them than he was his kin in Numeria.
There's no good explanation for that which he knows,
but he thinks it funny to pretend he thinks they're all having information piped into their brains from a different dimension, and thinks it funny to pretend that he wonders whether Ileosa can tell that he's thinking about that, which is a bizarre thing to do because she is reading his mind as he generates those thoughts and can tell he doesn't believe them. This bizarre joke seems in keeping with his general character, though; as ever Altronus is trying to amuse himself, first and foremost.
Also, kasatha are from another planet? Is this something which everyone else already knew?
Look. Altronus is our friend. If you're accusing him of something you should be clear what it is.
So we can get him truthspelled and check it out ourselves.
We've got ways to make him talk.
Yeah, if there's going to be PvP, let's get it done while we've got him disarmed and grappled.
Pff, I'd like to see you try.
Really not helping your case, bub.
If you really are our friend, Altronus, you won't struggle while the megapope ties your wrists to your ankles.
...Alright, sure, that seems reasonable.
No it does not seem reasonable. Altronus, why are you going along with this?
What is wrong with you people? What is your major malfunction?
Eh?
Three of you notice that a spell was cast and sound off about it. And then Altronus says aloud that he did not notice a spell cast - in his mind he was thinking "oh shit" - and what, you all mob him while he stands there and takes it? Why would any you think that was useful, Altronus least of all? If he were under mind control, why would he have told you?? And even if he were enchanted, is that a rational way to react to - mass charm per - no, mass charm monster? Eighth-circle mass charm monster?? I don't think it is? Or, I suppose, mass suggestion? Still probably not?? And do you think you would have noticed if someone were casting sixth or eighth-circle spells on you? Would three of you have saved? And if someone was casting sixth-circle, eighth-circle spells on you, why would... do you think that...
Look. Altronus failed a Will save of unknown effect and provenance. I didn't have some specific scenario in mind, I just disabled him.
He'd have done the same.
Well, we did know that Altronus wasn't being scried on, because the rest of us -
Oh, yeah, if no one else has to roll anything and Altronus fails a will save that didn't seem to do anything that's probably someone scrying -
- not that we'd have known, unless he'd made the save -
If someone was scrying we'd have just sat around -
It's that we all had to save that spooked me -
And we didn't know what it did -
If Altronus said "oh no, I feel so afraid all of a sudden!" I wouldn't have jumped him, but all he told us was that he failed the save.
It could have been anything. Some spell we haven't thought of, some supernatural ability. It could have been confusion, and he was temporally "acting normally."
We didn't dress-rehearse for this, it just seemed like a good idea at the time.
Endorsed and undersigned.
If you trust each other so much, why are you willing to tie him up and interrogate him at the drop of a hat, at the - at the concern of someone from outside your group?
Well, you trust, but you verify.
Speaking of which, Lyvina, you should check that the divination aura is really detect thoughts.
It is.
Ileosa, what did you think would happen when you cast an AoE mind-effecting spell on us? Maybe we don't do - the thing we did exactly, the way you imagined it playing out. But we would have had to do something.
Ileosa hoped to eavesdrop quietly.
It was well within the realm of possibility that one or more of them would resist the spell - call it a fifty percent chance someone saved - but if enough of them failed it to think it wasn't say, a scrying attempt, Ileosa would just explain. Like she's doing now.
(By the way, you're taking this surprisingly well, compared to most people if they found out someone tried to read their minds?)
It's not like she's broken any laws.
Fifty percent...? Altronus, is that -
Of course not. She's nuts.
...Ileosa saw you all fight Cressida Kroft.
If you had buckets of hitdice she'd know.
And none of you are wearing cloaks, so the strongest Wills in the party belong to your clerics. Your first circle clerics. Ileosa doesn't know that her Spell DC is 17 precisely, except when she leans on the fourth wall, but she has a general idea of how likely a first-circle cleric is to fail against her second-circle spells.
What's your bonus to Will saves, archpope? +5? +4?
+3?
I actually happened to make second-circle this morning.
I'll update my resume.
Not +3, then.
Dear friend, my Will save is plus nine.
That's the average Will save of a CR 12 monster.
I'm Fortified by Drink.
Okay.
So.
Will-saves-Georg here is bringing up the curve, but what about the rest of you? The rest of you just rolled lucky, right?
I spent my Resolve to roll twice and take the higher. That's like rolling lucky.
My Will is +10. I wasn't thinking about it at all when I built my character, +10 Will at level three just kind of happened to me.
......mine is +3....... which fails against level-appropriate threats approximately half the time.
You really need to fix that.
Believe me that I know. The build doesn't come online all at once.
Getting your DPR sorted before your Will save is fucking antisocial.
Wait, we're getting off topic. What did Ileosa find in his brain? Is he super fucking evil? Altronus, you'd better not be secretly evil again.
...What if he's not Evil but he is a total bastard?
Well that's old news.
What makes me a total bastard? What can you see in my mind?
Your surface thoughts.
That clarifies a lot less for me than you'd think!
I am reading your mind. I can tell that you don't actually believe that... and you got a rise out of me.
Congratulations, you win.
Excellent. As my prize, I'd like to know what it is that I'm apparently thinking but apparently do not believe?
For context, right now Altronus is pretending to believe... it's the stupidest thing.
He's pretending to believe that everything he says was decided on by a human university student in a different world, who's sitting at a table playing a board game with his friends.
His name, allegedly, is Arthur.
ARTHUR!
It's nothing but the truth. Also none of this is my fault and I had nought at all to do with it.
So the note you passed the gamemaster -
Said nothing of the sort. They're making this up devoid my contribution.
Altronus is pretending that Arthur didn't know that Altronus knew Arthur was controlling him.
This is, I reiterate, the stupidest fucking thing.
I'm thinking of a number between one and ten.
No, you aren't.
I even wrote it down.
He's pretending to believe that Arthur wrote a number down but didn't show it to the "gamemaster."
Oh, he pretended to show it to the gamemaster, now, and also came up with a number.
The number is five.
So you can't really read my mind.
Of course I can read your mind.
Why would you think that they could read your mind?
<You can see what I show the gamemaster. What if I don't show them anything?>
I can still read your thoughts? Because, as you know, and as you know I know, and as you know I know you know I know, there is no such being as the gamemaster.
But not the particulars, just - guesses?
That seems exploitable.
Nothing you are saying or thinking is true.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
You believe that I am a Numerian kasatha of the most peculiar character. For no particular reason, I behave exactly as you'd expect if I were an Earthling's player character in a game of Pathfinder Tabletop Role Playing Game. I have four companions, each of whom are the same. Exactly, I repeat, as you'd expect yadda dee yadda da. I have all the knowledge that adds up to a Numerian kasatha acting the way you'd expect him to if he was raised in a different world.
But all of that is just... random chance.
Sounds plausible.
YOU believe that! That is what YOU BELIEVE.
And you came up with "Pathfinder" after you'd already seen your life, so obviously it matches your life pretty well??
Someone else should bomb their Will save, this is hilarious.
This is so dumb.
No offense.
Lyvina Mayyad's imaginary version of Olivia Mallard thinks this is so dumb.
Huh. Your last name is Mallard?
Yeah.
Like a duck?
It's french.
What's it french for?
It's french for "duck."
We should all fail our saves and get this over with.
...The other three are pretty much the same, though with their own twists.
Okay.
Okay.
What?
...What are the odds that this is just literally true?
She believes that Altronus et all don't believe it. But, they wouldn't. The theory posits that they - coincidentally think things which cause them to act in the way that they would if they were Player Characters...??
No, definitely not that, if it were that you could remove the extradimensional beings and it'd strictly make things simpler. The theory is that they - have information piped into their brains, and then come up with thoughts to justify the conclusions that they'll come to... that should be visible to detect magic, and it isn't.
They could be some kind of shapeshifter with a forward-facing brain and one behind, and/or - the magic aura could be hidden - she's going to make them stand in an antimagic field and have them hit with true form.
It'd be kind of a nitwit play, though. If someone were hiding, you'd think they'd hide in a way that doesn't make people suspicious enough to antimagic and true form them.
So probably it's not that.
But there's definitely something fucky going on here, and none of them know what it is.
Further. They have a fake explanation for it. There is no reason to have a fake explanation for something except to conceal the truth.
Someone doesn't want them to know.
Or - doesn't want her to know? Doesn't want the truth to get out?
...If something happened to the four of you, to make you how you are, it happened in that dungeon.
And something happened to the four of you.
So it happened in that dungeon.
Lady, you read my mind.
After paying and begging and one-on-one-ing with Korvosa's wizards, she persuades to stay Cangi, Irevotnin, Delmore, Remorri, Maganrad, Geezlebottle, Zenderholm, and two faces which are new to her. Zey is doing his own thing, which involves being intermittently in the proximity of Korvosa for now. And then, fantastic news, Dean of Divination Norva Allesain teleports back into Korvosa.
She talked Maganrad and one of the new faces into taking jobs as Spellmasters in the Korvosan Guard, which she hopes will make them a hair more reluctant to cut and run.
Which is nine teleport-capable wizards, plus Zey, though a few of them can only cast it once per day. That's honestly much better than she'd hoped; especially she's surprised and glad to have Delmore on board.
Considering that Delmore controls half of the shadows they have guarding the door.
Do you know what would really make her day? If Toff Ornelos came back to town and doubled their teleport capacity. And fixed the door. And fed everyone. Like he said he would. Where is the guy?
Geb.
He's on a fact-finding mission.
But hey, hey, hey. Discard and draw, there's a new eighth-circle in town this morning.
Togomor, mercenary Hemotheurge, at your service. And this is my familiar Pudgyknuckles, mercenary Corvus corax.
Just... nobody look at him with true seeing up, okay?
Togomor!
What're you doing here, dude?
Ileosa!
You look fabulous, and I absolutely love what you've done with your hair. Have you gotten taller, or just gotten taller shoes?
Kayltanya said you needed help but didn't say you were hiding under the sewer.
Have you been getting enough to eat?
I could certainly stand to eat better! I don't suppose you kept your seventh-circle slots open?
That or something alike to it. How many mansions do you need?
Hello, Mr. Togomor, and welcome to the Vault. This is the gift-horse dentist here for your annual cleaning.
let me see those chompers
Watch Sergeant.
Don't bother my friend.
It's fine, Ileosa, really, it's fine! He's glad that they're taking precautions!
Togomor favors the uppity fighter with a very wide smile. Because it's really no imposition, no imposition at all.
He loves cleaning his teeth - he does it every day - and if someone else wants in on the action, well, who is he to blame them!
...Right.
Cressida Kroft wants to know his happy price to accept a truthspell and answer [list of questions apropos Togomor's history, capabilities, and intentions; which list would most certainly catch the fact he trapped Eodred's soul].
If I'm to be truthspelled, I must truthfully say, I'd be happy to do it for free! Mutual trust is its own reward.
Abadar's truthtelling.
Not these words exactly, but did you happen to trap our king's soul in a little rock?
Have you made a habit of doing things like that in the past?
Do you foresee doing things like that in the future?
Togomor will innocently answer all of her questions in comprehensive detail and without bloviation.
He's in Korvosa to do some Good old fashioned mercenary work.
Because he likes money and what you can buy for it, and because he thinks some of Korvosa's arcane knowledge will be atypically attainable, and also because Korvosa needs the help and he likes saving the day.
He wouldn't do anything as wicked as trapping someone's soul, not for any price, not unless they were a very bad man and he had no other option.
I'm going to need you to roll Bluff.
38.
Who wins if it's a tie?
An opposed check is a check whose success or failure is determined by comparing the check result to another character’s check result. In an opposed check, the higher result succeeds, while the lower result fails. In case of a tie, the higher skill modifier wins. If these scores are the same, roll again to break the tie. [1]
1. D&D 3.5, because Pathfinder doesn't have rules for this(?!). ↩
...Alright, the uppity fighter climbs five notches in Togomor's threat assessment.
Maybe six.
Wait! Does Togomor get the bonus for having "convincing evidence" of his honesty?
He did do all of this under a truthspell, after all.
(Well, either that or something alike it.)
The DC to get a hunch that someone's trustworthy is 20. It'd be weird for Cressida Kroft to fail that, under normal conditions.
Togomor doesn't read as trustworthy, to her.
He's not necessarily untrustworthy - and she can believe that he's telling the literal truth - but he still feels like a slimeball.
...It's probably a very bad idea to be on bad terms with one of the most powerful wizards in Avistan even as he worms his way into the Queen of Korvosa's inner circle. Can she bluff him into thinking she doesn't find him suspicious? Smiles smiles smiles thank you for your timely help? Cressida isn't a trained actor, but the raw Charisma score is often sufficient for people who aren't great at Sense Motive.
Believe it or not, but he's thrown some skill ranks in that direction.
Togomor is, however, perfectly happy to beam right back at her!
Oh wow, that went over pretty well!
....Wait.
She has no idea whether that went over well.
Though it's good to know which things she doesn't know!
Togomor is realizing that he'll need to invest his spells and sails in Bluff enhancements just to get by down here.
That's... honestly a lot of fun!
Finally, a worthy opponent.
Field Marshall, I want your opinion on how many magnificent mansions we must needs commission, and where I should order the entrances placed.
How should I know?
You're the Field Marshall, I'm sure you have people for that.
Kroft, how many magnificent mansions do we need and where should we put them?
Four and we should put them over there.
Field Marshall, I think she's waiting for you to -
Four, and I think we should put them over there.
Very well. I trust your judgement, Sabina.
Soup's on!
The people of Korvosa, bereaved, reduced to the extremest misery and poverty, many without even a fork or washcloth to their name, suffering together in close cramped quarters, who slept or couldn't sleep last night on unworked stone, at least now have food.
There's a lot you can suffer through, if you have the hard evidence of your own eyes and nose telling you that you won't starve.
The atmosphere as Korvosa queues is almost jubilant, and at a taste of the mage's magnificent fare, people cry with relief and good cheer.
Togomor has 18,000 square feet of mansion up for rent, which adds something between a fourth and a third again to the Vault's total floorspace.
Short-term lease; only thirty hours.
He finds buyers.
Ileosa had more to say but can at least read a room. She'll wait until she has a meal or a win to package it with.
What she'd give for a goblet and a spoon to tap against it.
I'll get their attention for you.
Besides, if Reebs got to give a speech I want to give one too.
Reebs got to give a speech because he'd just cast a divination spell and we wanted to know what was going on.
Not because we're amenable to religious weirdos speechifying in full generality.
I respect that. I think Cayden Cailean respects that too.
However, consider the following:
Clerics of the Lucky Drunk can create wine with an orison.
...We're listening.
It's not even ten AM.
We are adults and can make our own decisions.
If I've got your attention:
I'm speaking to you today as the Megapope of Cayden Cailean's church in Varisia, and as a representative - a representative example of the sort of company that guy keeps.
I asked Cayden by augury whether I should assume he stands with us against the darkness, and He said "weal." I had to look that one up in a dictionary, folks, but I'll spare you the effort; it's good news.
I then called on Him to condemn the actions of Team Shadow and call for an immediate ceasefire.
He didn't say anything, because I only prepped one augury, but I'm sure he would have if he could have.
In a fight like this, for what the world should look like, where everything is up in the air, I'd rather have Cayden Cailean on my side than any other god.
He's waay stronger than Milani or Asmodeus or whoever. Do either of them give the Strength domain? No? Didn't think so.
Don't get me wrong, I love half the gods as people, and respect the shit out of 'em.
But ex-mortals make the best gods. No shade on Erastil, who's awesome, but it's true.
Most of the gods were never mortal, and most of the ones who were barely count. Nethys was already a god-king before he cast his epic spell, Iomedae already had her church, Irori was some kind of ascetic, and all of them have some whacky philosophy that they'd like you better if you subscribed to.
More in common with the pantheon they joined than they ever had with us peons.
Now those gods are duking it out. Some of them are trying to feed us all to undead horrors, and to that we say: "please don't." Others are trying to stop them. Our team.
But do you think Asmodeus is doing that out of the kindness of his heart? Of course not. If he's helping us it's because it helps him, and who knows if that helps us in the end.
Powerful people, with their own visions, find it easy to lose track of the little guy. They have the power to get their way, so they figure, why not do it? Why not do it and feel good doing it?
But we have a seat at the table.
Cayden Cailean, local boy made big, god of people eating good food, drinking good drink, god of standing up for the little guy and of playing board games with friends.
With him in our corner, I can believe that things might turn out okay.
While the gods do battle, reordering the world, people on Golarion are angling for the same.
Some of them who, maybe, have more in common with Nethys or Iomedae than with Cayden Cailean.
Some of those people are in this room.
No shade! I love you all as people, I respect the shit out of each and every one of you.
There's nothing wrong with having an agenda, as long as you don't get too caught up in it and forget to not be awful.
I don't think we could lose Cayden's help against the shadows. He's too nice a guy, and the shadows are too terrible.
But let's not take advantage of his kindness, eh? Try not make Him sad, after everything He's done and doing for us?
Let's keep our eyes on falling sparrows.
I yield the rest of my time to Queen Ileosa; I think she had something she wanted to say.
Imagine that I'm saying thanks. But. Really drawing the word out, such that it doesn't sound all that thankful. And there's a bit of a 'y' sound in there, like
"Thay-yanks."
Now imagine that I'm not actually saying that but it is written on my face.
You are, of course, quite welcome.
The year is 4700, Absalom Reckoning.
Aberian Arvanxi has recently had his neighbors' daughters murdered.
A twelve-year old Ileosa is inconsolable.
They had a fight some days ago. She cast spells on him.
New ones, first-circle.
Attack spells. Flush with pride and flush with fear, Aberian hit her until she stopped.
Now they haven't spoken in days. Ileosa won't even come down for meals. Just sits up in her room all day playing that flute he'd bought her.
For twelve years he's been too soft on her, and it now fills him with fear.
He sees holes in her education.
What happens if he dies? What would have happened if she'd killed him, and his coward lenience left his baby girl ill-equipped to survive alone?
While Ileosa plays her flute, Aberian plans her curriculum.
What does Ileosa nee Arvanxi, the most hated woman of any in Varisia, "Eodred's hired wife," "the Whore-Queen of Korvosa," have in common with an ancient Pharaoh who ruled Osirion as a god.
What does Ileosa Arabasti, who has suffered for every little thing she owns, who lives in a hole with people who hate her, have in common a woman who grew up in Age of Enthronement Cheliax and who now dwells in Paradise.
Ileosa was born clinging to a liferaft of sin and corpses, and shown that if she ever let go she'd drown. Since then she's - what, climbed on top of it? Bailed a little? Considered - just considered - trying to make it seaworthy?
How despicable of her.
But Ileosa... won't complain. Not about this in particular! She'll sure complain about other things.
But she won't complain of being born on the raft and not under it. Her father took pains to show her how deep is the storm-tossed sea of blood she floats on, and to impress on her how quickly she could find herself at the bottom of it. Never complain of your rung on the ladder or what it takes to keep it, he told her. People are listening, above you and below, and they keep their knives sharp.
Your life could always be worse.
She should be glad of the comparison to Nethys and Iomedae. Look, da, I made it.
I made it so good they say I had it made from the very start.
Thank you for that introduction, Megapope. We should all take his sermon to heart.
I hope that people are enjoying the food. It was conjured by Togomor, a wizard of the eighth circle and a total dearheart of mine. The two of us go way back.
He's been good enough to agree to help us out; treat me as you'd treat - ah, sorry!
I meant to say, treat him as you would treat me.
Try not to make him sad~.
...
oh shit
Eodred's empty-headed troph'Ileosa had an eighth-circle wizard in her pocket?
You could call it a dress-up doll breaking with convention - or call it a model violation.
Perhaps the pettish Queen is no push-over.
Quite so.
Tremble and fear, pathetic dretches.
While she has your attention, Ileosa would like to say a word or two vis a vis the Vault's... general level of readiness.
Silent image for dramatic lighting. She'll do this a cappella.
Some of you seem a little afraid of my man Togomor. I want to be clear that no one, no one here has any reason at all to be a little afraid of Togomor.
We Vault-dwellers are the all of us one company, steel cold-forged against an anvil icy and penumbral.
Those of us in this room saw Korvosa through its darkest night to date.
We all lost people that we loved, last night. The future of our nation stood in doubt. We rose to the challenge.
If some sparks flew, well, that's the hazard of working at speed and with passion.
I, for one, am prepared to just this once let bygones be.
...Are you, though? Are you really?
And I encourage everyone here with casus belli for continued animosity to do the same.
Circumstances, they mitigate.
Far from holding anger in my heart, I believe rewards to be in order.
Reward-type rewards, or "hahaha your reward is death"-type rewards?
Reward-type rewards.
I, Ileosa Arabasti I, Queen of Korvosa, Steward of Chellish Varisia, decree that every single single Korvosan who can hear these words has earned a knighthood and the title of baronet.
Lands on the surface will be divided among you. If your landlord was eaten by a shadow, the home you are accustomed to living in will be awarded you and subtracted from your demesne. I think it would be a black mark of shame on the Crimson Throne if any veteran of the Vault survived the shadows and went back to renting.
Come forward, dames and sirs, single-file but double-quick; speak your name and kneel before me to receive your knighthood.
...Is this a trap.
If it is, it's baited with delicious Galtian cheese.
The common people's attitude towards Ileosa improves, on average, by one step; from Hostile to Unfriendly, from Unfriendly to Indifferent, from Indifferent to Friendly. The rare few Friendly people in the crowd are now positively Helpful.
The existing nobility's opinion of her moves just as sharply in the opposite direction.
Knights of the Vault!
Last night was the darkest night in Korvosa as yet. But the danger isn't past us.
We teeter, perched on the precarious point of a poignard.
Doom for everyone in this Vault could look as innocuous as a child going unminded for the wrong five minutes, a missing person unnoticed for twenty seconds too many, a wizard's warning that fails to properly percolate, let alone poor teamwork or slow communication among civilians and the Guard.
We must be able to adapt quickly to changing circumstances. We must have clear lines of communication.
For the purpose of general organization, I, Ileosa, Queen of Korvosa, command that all Knights of the Vault arrange themselves into Vault Groups of 4d6. Each Group will elect a Vault Officer, who will appoint a Lieutenant Vault Officer. These are not military positions, nor are they paid positions. In fact, no one can hold any position higher than Lieutenant Vault Officer while simultaneously belonging to any military chain of command. Military people should be focused on their jobs.
It is the duty of a Vault Officer to concern themselves with the affairs of their Vault Group. A Vault Officer must serve as a mediator within their Group, liaison with the Korvosan Guard, and their advocate to the Queen and Seneschall. Take notice of situations - anything acrimonious or at all out of the ordinary - before they deteriorate, and provide timely solutions. Or escalate a budding problem to the Korvosan Guard and your Vault Captain.
I'll combine Vault Groups to form Vault Battalions. Each Battalion will have an elected Vault Captain, who will in turn appoint a Lieutenant Vault Captain. From the Captains I will select a Colonel.
All the food you can eat, and wine you can drink, the ear of the Queen, an eighth-circle wizard who cares about you more than does Toff Ornelos - these are only the bare beginnings of all which I will do for you.
Our situation is dire. I won't whitewash things or try to manage your emotions.
But among our many terrible and potentially lethal problems, we of Korvosa are lucky that we do not suffer from unresponsive and incompetent royalty.
Not while I sit the Throne.
The future is littered with prizes, and we can position ourselves to snatch the lion's share.
The world's old order is crumbling; we are of the few aware. We can be prepared to pick up the pieces.
Our experience with terror is hard-earned; would it not be generous of us to share what we've learned with all of Varisia? I say again, Korvosa will not fade into irrelevance while I sit the Crimson Throne.
On the whole this... seems like a positive development? And not clearly to Ileosa's advantage? Like, she just gave Cressida Kroft another organization to be openly secretly in charge of, and this one's got everybody in it.
What's the trap?
Why the uncharacteristic generosity? I don't remember anything like this happening in Curse of the Crimson Throne.
Perhaps the Megapope's sermon softened Ileosa's heart.
And maybe the Thrunes actually sold their souls to Heaven and everything that's happened since then has been a farcical misunderstanding.
What are you playing at?
Last night while she was thinking, Ileosa found herself caught on the horns of a dilemma.
Fundamentally, she has two problems.
The first is that she can't trust Korvosa. The second, that she must trust Korvosa.
If the people of Korvosa are empowered and have good internal communication, she will be overthrown.
Maybe not today. Or... maybe in fact today.
Whereas if the people of Korvosa are disempowered, if she restricts their lines of communication, rotates their officers, pays people to inform on each other, executes or exiles anyone who competently rivals her, the whole coup-proofing nine yards of cloth; a) they won't be able to fight the shadows, and b) Cressida Kroft will stop humoring Ileosa to the extent that she currently is.
(Sabina could kill Kroft, Ileosa thinks. Kroft's an old dinosaur who does her best work at a desk or table. But the fallout wouldn't be pretty.)
(And Sabina would be so upset.)
Eodred never managed to give Ileosa an heir. Which she has deeply mixed feelings about - the idea of carrying and raising his child has come to make her skin crawl - but she was hoping to have more self-evident legitimacy behind her by the time Eodred went and kicked the bucket than "gold-digging foreign teenage bimbo who the king was was briefly married to."
And it's pretty clear at this point that she doesn't.
She's neither loved nor feared, but boy is she hated.
Ileosa had plans for coup-proofing, but they rested on the bedrock assumption that Korvosa would remain a regional power even if she greatly reduced its short-run military and economic efficiency.
Which chair has been kicked out from under her.
Doom for everyone in the Vault could come with no warning. Doom for everyone outside the Vault is coming with warning, and will take some serious strain to avert.
Ileosa has nowhere to ride this out. She can't even flee back to Westcrown with her tail between her legs and an apology on her lips.
Right now "Queen of Korvosa, such as it is," is the only thing that separates Ileosa Arabasti from all the other second-circle bards on the planet.
While she's Queen, she can raise armies and order them to fight. She can tell people to collect taxes and give them to her to spend. She can ask Togomor or Toff Ornelos to build a fortress for her in an unassailable demiplane, or on the moon. She can get a good price for her soul. She can build on her existing base of wealth and power. She can seek eternal youth like Galfrey, or become a vampire under controlled circumstances. Ileosa's abilities are only limited to what people assume she's allowed to have them do.
Without that... what are her options?
Go find someone powerful like Eodred to attach herself to like a stirge but sexy? This time probably forever?
She'd really rather not.
Beg Kayltanya to extend her charity? Or - Ileosa could join the Red Mantis?
Ileosa doesn't imagine that she'd make a very good contract killer, let alone fanatic contract killing cultist. Also, it probably wouldn't improve her life expectancy by very much. Also. Putting on a bug-faced mask and skulking in the bushes with a knife with which to stab someone twice your size who you've never spoken to and who might very well kill you in self-defense seems very... blue collar.
Ileosa needs Korvosa firing on all cylinders, or she's as good as dead.
But there's maybe a narrow path between Scylla and Charybdis, if she abandons her attachments and seizes it.
Ileosa has no delusions that she can buy lasting popularity for any price: it was drummed into her head, growing up, that the person who builds upon the people builds their house on mud. Public opinion is fickle and irrational. If you give them things, they'll be grateful for a day and ungrateful by the morrow. (But once you have given people rights, don't expect to take them away; do that and they'll hate you forever.)
But she can buy that day's worth of gratitude, at an exorbitant price in future revenue and the cost of throwing stones in the path of her future absolutism.
It's the best she can do for her short-term survival while she makes the Vault-dwellers militarily effective.
As her father once said: the game isn't always recoverable while you're alive, but it's almost never recoverable if you're dead.
...Ileosa had been planning what she'd do when she took the throne since she was sixteen years old.
Nearly three years of daydreams and diaries and whispered conspiracies.
When she needed to get away, she'd walk Korvosa's walls, watch the ships in the water, the hippogriffs in the air. And she'd think, all of this will be mine.
When nobles and commoners alike showed her fake smiles and no respect, she thought. When I'm Queen I'll teach them to fear me like people fear the Thrunes.
When her married life seemed unbearable, Ileosa would commiserate with Corbastia, or sneak out with Sabina, and she'd think, I will be free and all of this will have been worth it.
It was going to be perfect.
As Ileosa was considering her precarious position last night, there was a powerful temptation to - modify her plans just a little. Enough to convince herself that they could still work, without tossing them out like yesterday's milk.
The year is 4702, Absalom Reckoning.
A fourteen-year-old Ileosa Arvanxi stands on a chair, supported by the tips of her toes and by a very itchy necklace.
"I am going to tell you," her father says, "the two quickest ways in the world to see your neck lengthened on a gibbet."
He wouldn't be lecturing her if he'd actually been enchanted by Lord Rasdovain's wizard. This was all an elaborate test - and Ileosa failed it, but she'll live.
For some reason that's what starts her crying.
"The first way," he speaks over her hiccuping sobs, "is to find yourself without a plan, outmaneuvered by those who thought to think ahead."
She knows where he's going with this. He's tried to make this point before.
"The second is to cling too tightly to the plans you already made, instead of drawing new ones, while all the world tries and tries to talk you out of your mistake."
"I won't do it again."
"You will. But next time, Ileosa, I need you to catch yourself at it."
So, yeah. Out with coup-proofing, in with whatever this is.
Why the uncharacteristic generosity? Because it's the best option I can see.
What am I playing at? I want to stay alive.
What's the trap? I admitted to myself that my odds of victory weren't as high as I would have liked for them to be, and decided that in worlds where I lose I'd rather lose down the road than lose today and rather lose to you than to the shadows.
There is no trap.
(Well, there's a very minor trap in the works, where the lands that she doles out will come with associated taxes that initially look fair and objective but turn out to swing wildly from year to year and also be somewhat manipulable by her, with the intent that in bad years large numbers of people will find themselves unable to pay. Ileosa doesn't particularly expect to get back anything that she's giving away like that - she's been told that you can't take people's rights back without their melting down - Ileosa just wants the option to put a faceless agency in charge of knocking on people's doors and shaking coins out of them, so that people have to come appeal to her and she can look generous by constantly intervening to forgive debts.
There might be some other traps too that she hasn't thought of yet, also she's going to get a contract devil to look over her ideas and they might have Recommendations.)
(Overall, though, a striking paucity of traps.)
While they're dealing with the shadows, Ileosa will of course scrabble to increase the power invested in her personally, or which answers to her.
She'll raise a parallel military to the Korvosan Guard, make herself the linchpin to international agreements, invite the Red Mantis into Varisia, figure out how much she trusts Togomor and whether she can rely on him as a counterbalance to Toff Ornelos and the Academae without having the rug pulled on her or becoming his stooge, build closer ties with Archbishop Reebs, kit herself out in better magic items, sell her soul, figure out for sure what that thing in the basement of Castle Korvosa is and whether it can really help her level, figure out what Player Character Cave did to those people and whether it can bestow otherworldly knowledge on her, find powerful monsters and bargain with them.
And then... there only are a few thousand survivors of the shadow plague within Korvosa proper.
She'll have to find a way to cut that bridge after she crosses it.
The war council meets in a mage's magnificent conference room; the air's cleaner and there are places to sit.
Half the people who should be here aren't, and half the people who shouldn't be here nonetheless are. Overall there's something more than 30 people in attendance:
Her Royal Majesty:
Queen Ileosa Arabasti, Queen of Korvosa, Steward of Chellish Varisia;
Seneschall of Castle Korvosa:
Dame Corbastia Lettice;
Representatives of Korvosa's Great Houses, including:
Lord Valdur Bromathan, Head of House Bromathan;
his bodyguard;
Lady Eliasia Leroung, Head of House Leroung;
Lady Brie Endrin, representing House Endrin;
Lady Sebastia Jeggare, representing House Jeggare;
Lord Rem Ornelos, representing House Ornelos;
Arbiter Zenobia Zenderholm, representing House Zenderholm;
The Korvosan Guard, including:
Dame Sabina Merrin, Field Marshall;
Spellmasters Tavid Bromathan
and Maganrad Hestrigsen;
Watch Sergeants Cressida Kroft
and Jope Chantsmo;
Detective Menten Brontolone;
Guardsmen Altronus, Hasagi, Mayyad, and Mull assigned to protect Queen Ileosa;
Guardsmen Sahlara and Karralo assigned to protect the representatives of Korvosa's Great Houses;
Knowledgeable wizards, including:
The Academae Deans
Master Julaei Cangi, Abjurer;
Master Salgar Irevotnin, Evoker;
Master Orianna Delmore, Necromancer;
Master Norva Allesain, Diviner;
(Master Elgin Remorri, Dean of Transmutation was invited and declined to attend);
And also
the mercenary wizard Togomor;
the Pathfinder Savant Aram Zey;
various apprentices and familiars;
Knowledgeable priests, including:
Archbishop Ornher Reebs, Asmodean;
Aforementioned Arbiter Zenobia Zenderholm, Abadaran;
Aforementioned Arch Megapope Olin Mull, Caydenite;
and their assistants;
Ranking members of the communal defense organization the Knights of the Vault, including:
Vault Colonel Qualins Rachmirol;
Vault Captain Portenus Gaskelinni;
Vault Captain Harmanuel Kendall;
Aforementioned Vault Captains Valdur Bromathan,
Eliasia Leroung,
and Julaei Cangi;
as well as Lieutenant Vault Captain Tauk Par.
Give - give me a moment to write all of that down.
Wait, did you think that was all?
Here's five more people who became aware of the meeting and insist on being a part of it - no, actually, make that six.
I'll start, alphabetically, with Lord -
NO! No, nope, thirty people is plenty.
More than plenty; Sahlara, take Karralo and go find someone with a problem you can fix.
Someone close the door and lock it.
Our first order of business will be discussing why Lord Valdur Bromathan and Lady Eliasia Leroung were passed up for selection as Vault Colonel.
Our first order of business will actually be discussing the situation with the door to the Vault.
There are dozens of shadows all controlled by different and ill-coordinated wizards and clerics. It's a disaster waiting to happen.
Easily remedied. Let me kill everyone else who's got a shadow and raise 'em as skeletal champions.
That way everything answers to me.
I'm very coordinated.
Archbishop Ornher Reebs doesn't like this plan very much.
I don't hear you suggesting a better one, Hat.
Well, we could -
LALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALA
I can't hear you~
What kind of aspiring lich dumps both Wisdom and Charisma?
Togomor is - although he doesn't mean to boast! - the foremost living expert on ethereal interactions with the material plane, so the place his mind goes is exotic forms of ectoplasm.
There are rare substances, made mostly of unhappily lingering spirits, which exist conterminously on the material and ethereal planes and bar the way to incorporeal creatures. Togomor imagines he can drum up a goop that Strength 0 shadows can't push through, yet through which fleshy humans can hold their breath and swim. Or they could wear SCUBA gear!
Although, as ectoplasm evaporates pretty quickly if it's carted away from the eddies where it naturally puddles, it'd need constant topping off. Or perhaps he could divert some River of Souls runoff?
Sometimes wizards say things which distress her.
With Togomor's eighth-circle assistance, there's possibly a more practicable solution than that, if interested wizards will swear under truthspell not to proliferate the knowledge or use it against the interests of the person who discovered it - at least not until she's arranged some sort of payment.
Cressida Kroft was shown this partial spell diagram and told it was half of the lost method to make a spell called phase door permanent. Does it look legit, and if so what's the tradeoff if Togomor teleports out to fetch the whole thing? How many teleports does he get per day?
Togomor loves secrets! Sure, he'll promise under truthtelling to take this one to his grave.
!
!
Oh, wow. Yes, this is legit, and - he doesn't need to go anywhere, the partial diagram is enough he can guess what the rest of it looks like. Thank you very much for sharing with the class.
Except - he doesn't have phase door in his book, nor the diamond dust.
I've already set my man in Absalom on finding those. He'll leave them in my Bag of Holding, and take his payment from the same.
I'm sorry, can someone explain what's going on?
Sure.
I am telepathically linked to a Pathfinder in Absalom. I told him, just now, that we needed a spellbook with phase door in it. He quoted me a price. It was quite reasonable.
To hire a wizard powerful enough to teleport all the way here from Absalom today, considering the economic conditions which hold in the Inner Sea post-Westcrown, and to teleport all the way back, would not be reasonable.
Instead, I'm paying a cleric to plane shift. The man to whom I am telepathically linked possesses a fork attuned to my Bag of Holding.
He will leave your items in the Bag, and take the money that we leave in there.
Was that clear or must I say it again and slower?
...I suppose I ought perhaps explain what phase door does; did we lose you that far back?
Absolutely fantastic. Thank you, Zey.
Is that the door situation tentatively solved?
I liked my solution better.
Trapped behind stone, the air will curdle. I'd planned to animate a sailcloth bellows tomorrow had I the spells, and air the Vault out.
I'm three steps ahead of you. Give me half an hour and I'll have a Bag of Holding filled with topsoil, saplings, sod, and an Erastilian cleric for plant growth.
Pick a side tunnel you don't need to move through quickly; I'll have it turned to jungle.
How much do we owe you?
Lots.
Oh GOOD. It's OVER.
If that's the door situation tentatively solved, we should move on to the next thing on the docket...
Discussing why Lord Valdur Bromathan and Lady Eliasia Leroung were passed up for selection as Vault Colonel.
...Getting a better handle on the shape of the threat that faces Varisia, so we don't put our effort and teleports into a half-cocked solution that doesn't turn out to solve anything.
Well, as we've each a mouth and two ears apiece, how abouts all y'all talk about your thing and all we all talk about our thing.
That sounds needlessly hectic.
If it's needlessly hectic, who's fault is that?
We've sat patiently for long enough!
.....If you would be so kind as to wait patiently just a bit longer.
It's clear that you're never coming back to this.
Because you. Don't. Care.
There are things I could say about Cressida the honorary commoner, the ungracious and unmarried last daughter of House Kroft - oh, how your ancestors in Axis must wail and gnash their teeth! - but as I have the slightest touch of class I will refrain.
That was completely unprovoked. no
That feels completely unprovoked. correct but irrelevant
Why did they say that?
...Because Ileosa knighted and landed three thousand people and they're anxious for their own position, that of those they know, of their children, and worried for the stability and prosperity of the Korvosan State.
Where "anxious" is a word which here means "terrified" and "furious."
So they're a) acting on their anger even in longterm-counterproductive ways as long as it feels at each step that they're angering in the correct general direction and b) trying to establish that Ancestral Rights Count For Something (though they might not do so in an effective fashion, because see point a.)
If Cressida Kroft has fewer than the Rough Beast's 30,000 hearts at least she has the one.
I picked Qualins Rachmirol for her experience hunting monsters.
Sounds reasonable to me.
Rachmirol has a good head on her shoulders - at least by the standards of adventuring free lances.
Aw, shucks.
Thanks, Field - thanks Kroft!
You're pretty cool too, for a sedentary constable!
Eliasia Leroung has a pretty good head on her shoulders - at least for the University of Korvosa's Headmistress!
Nor did the Dawnflower choose Valdur Bromathan as Her priest for his foolishness!
When asked - in a unnervingly republican fashion - the People of Korvosa showed their unimpeachable character in choosing the Head of House Bromathan and the Head of House Leroung to lead and protect them.
Queen Ileosa has defied the will of commoners and peers alike, and all the People of Korvosa, in placing our refined Lord and Lady beneath some random adventuring hero. Regardless how admirably she may have acquitted herself against the darkness last night!
Eight generations of Leroungs and Bromathans groan alike in Axis where they hear of this injustice and ingratitude!
For what purpose did they die in Korvosa's defense? For what purpose did they conduct themselves with inimitable nobility? To what Lawlessness have we come?
To place Lady Leroung and Lord Bromathan beneath some landless commoner is an affront to their dignity, is contrary to the very Law that justifies your monarchy, and a vicious snub to all of Korvosa's Great Houses, and all its noble houses, and - and to all the People of Korvosa!
Surely that at least is obvious!
If he can get a word in edgewise, Lord Valdur Bromathan IV, priest of Sarenrae, would like to retract his earlier complaint. Selecting the woman with a proven track record against esurient shadows to lead the Knights of the Vault makes sense to him, if it does to the Fie - if it does to Cressida Kroft.
He has in life survived one surprise night-time raid.
By all means, sideline him in favor of an adventurer accustomed to hunting monsters outside the walls!
Ileosa Arabasti is idly wondering who is the Queen in this room??
Maybe she needs to do more to visibly Chair the Committee.
Lord Bromathan's too humble.
If you want to discuss this further, you can do so in a breakout room.
Will Ileosa be there?
Heavens, no.
Then I'll stay.
So!
Shadows.
Spot-checks by scrying say the shadows made it roughly 50 miles along the coasts - following populated roads along the curve of the bay, not as the crow flies - more than half the way to the walls of Veldraine.
Yowch.
So today we fight for Veldraine, that they might avoid the doom that transpired here, and tomorrow we battle for Palin's Cove?
We should be so lucky.
The shadows crossed 50 miles in the six and a half pre-dawn hours after the attack began in the city of Korvosa.
I'm trying to make sense of what happened, but napkin math paints a frightening picture.
If we blindly extrapolate seven and a half miles per hour by eight hours of night, that's more than 60 miles a night - and they'll reach Palin's Cove too before next dawn.
It's the middle of Neth. From dusk to dawn is eleven hours.
Good catch.
....Good? ...Catch?
Not really??
Do you never go outside?
Cressida Kroft goes outside quite frequently!
But she's usually indoors when the sun is setting, and tends to think of the day in terms of three 8-hour shifts.
If the shadows are all racing away towards Veldraine as fast as they can, why are there still so many outside our front door?
If they were moving as quickly as they could, they could cross 16 miles an hour.
They've gone less than half of that - Kroft doesn't know why, perhaps she would if she knew more about what motivates shadows.
I've always heard that shadows are reluctant to travel far away from where they spawn.
The shadows travel like a wave in a medium.
I have Knowledge (religion), which as a matter of convention also covers the undead.
I don't have Knowledge ("waves" "in" "medium").
Assume that a given shadow will be satiated after draining the strength of one person per night.
(Or one person per week or month or year or however long - I get the impression that it might vary by the shadow, and that satiation isn't quite the right concept.
Something like half of the shadows up there shouldn't have had a chance to eat anyone yet in their unlives, that's how exponential growth works.)
There are something like 200,000 Korvosan citizens still alive up there, densest along the coast, the Jeggare, the Falcon, the Sarwin, and the Yondabakari.
It takes less than half a minute for a shadow to drain a person's strength to zero and of them make another shadow.
That new shadow hasn't eaten anyone ever in its life, so assume it goes out looking too.
Abstract away a few minutes for munching yummies, and imagine that each shadow spawns another shadow that travels a short distance up the road to spawn another, which travels up the road to etcetera.
Even if no individual shadow cares to travel more than a stone's throw from where it spawned, death rolls through the agrarian world.
And if some shadows are motivated to move quicker than others, the shadows expand at the speed of their quickest.
In practice, it looks like that's been 7ish 8ish miles an hour.
If they keep that up, and stick to the roads, they'll fill every nook and cranny of the country within the week, even if no single shadow moves travels further than five miles from where it first spawned.
"If they stick to the roads"?
At the seven-and-a-half mph pace, if a shadow cut across the rivers and open country it could be at the Storval Rise in a fortnight.
If it also moved as quickly as it could, it could be there tomorrow night with hours to spare.
This seems pretty apocalyptic, to me.
Probably more important than the Vault Colonel thing, so I'll drop the topic even if I'm not about to publicly walk any of it back.
You've a gift for understatement.
I figure we can solve the rest of the problem later, but by nightfall we need a way to secure all who live within 160 miles of 50 miles of the city of Korvosa -
160 miles of 50 miles?
We cannot rely on their not having been any single shadow that has already quietly made greater haste than the others. One shadow slips through and this all begins again.
Will you bet everything that there is no lonely nightmare that left the beaten path, and visited no place which was scried on?
...Good point.
And one shadow at the foot of the Storval Rise means no more Sirathu and also a second spreading front.
Okay.
How do we know that there aren't other fronts spreading within Korvosan territory already?
If there are, they opened after I had the holdings checked for raiders close to 4 AM this morning.
And only Veldraine has sent me with concern.
We should check again.
I concur.
Have the scryings done from Absalom; you might need what magic you have in the Vault.
I'll authorize that expense.
You're doing an awful lot for us on the strength of our IOU, Zey, and I want to double-check that you've priced in the risk of default.
Ileosa is going to look around the room to check for sure that she's not the only one reeling from that.
She is not.
We're not all so Abadaran as that, we assure you.
"Kroft, green bean, I'm sure the Pathfinder knows his business better than we do.
Maybe butt out of it, okay?"
Your Queen is quite correct.
I've been selling off your debt near as quick as I've bought it; it's impossible at this point for me not to turn a profit.
I'll tell you in an hour what the wizards turn up.
A permanent telepathic bond seems so convenient.
She's wanted one since before she even saw how Zey uses his - but they're so expensive for how fragile they are.
Maybe there's a magic item that does the same thing, so Arkona can't hire someone to come along and dispel it like he's always doing to her alarms?
...Though perhaps that's not exactly the threat model, anymore.
Abadar said there were something like fifty shadow attacks last night.
Can your man in Absalom tell us last night's other targets, asides from Korvosa and Westcrown?
If he can, I'll let you know.
I think this is actually impossible.
We have until night falls and the horror begins again to come to a sufficiently complete understanding of the problem, to find a solution that works at sufficient scale, and implement it across the entire colony?
I just don't think this is possible.
...It certainly looks harder than anything I've ever done.
Maybe there's a silver bolt that we'll find with thinking, maybe there isn't.
But we've done impossible things before.
Respectfully, Watch Sergeant, let's focus on the attainable.
Instead of stretching ourselves thin, let's first secure this Vault against mishap and disaster, and build our strength that one day we might reclaim our homes.
At this moment your entire food supply is one remarkable wizard using what I presume to be most or all of his seventh-circle spells.
What will you eat when he leaves, I wonder?
We have other wizards.
Where?
Right here! I'm speaking to one!
I. Can. Not. Cast. That. Spell.
Learn it, then!
???
You must admit that he has a point.
Delmore -
Do not antagonize me, Necromancer.
Fucking NECROMANCER.
This is all the fault of those ACADAMAE WIZARDS!
The first shadow escaped THEIR foul Hall of Whispers!
The first shadow escaped Abadar's Vault. Blame Him.
I last inspected the Hall of Whispers' level 4 necrosafety lab not a month ago.
I would love to tell you that a breach of containment would categorically have been impossible.
However, I cannot.
The safety precautions are adequate for the creatures which are kept there, in the absence of human error. But I was not reassured in my visit, regarding the possibility for human error.
What I can say is that there were no shadows kept in the Hall of Whispers as of my surprise visit, and if a shadow had escaped our control, it would have more likely begun its attack in the Heights.
They admit it! They admit that a shadow escaped their evil fucking school and that's what started this all!
Julaei Cangi has well over an hour left on her heroism and will patiently explain how that is not what she said.
Where did the shadows come from, then?
That's something she also would like to know.
The Shoanti Sun Shamans sicced it on us, in retaliation for King Edored's reasonable - even generous! - oh, how it boils my blood!
Hey! Shoanti horse-fucker, are you loyal to your savage Sun Shamans, or to the Crimson Throne?
Lieutenant Vault Captain Tauk Par will abruptly stand.
Kroft will stand too, in case she needs to get between them.
Rem Ornelos will jump in fright, get tangled in his chair, and fall over.
That's pretty much the effect he was going for, if more effective than he'd hoped!
Par will scoff dramatically, roll his eyes, and sit back down.
You just earned a powerful enemy for life.
Ditto, buddy.
...Or at least a moderately powerful guy-who-likes-you-markedly-less-than-his-already-high-base-rate-for-not-liking-people, for the next short while, until I forget that you exist.
What was your name again?
Gentlemen, please.
Lord Ornelos, the next time you give offense I will have to escort you from the room.
And Lieutenant Vault Captain, please trust my ability to moderate the discussion.
You are not in charge of moderating the discussion.
...
Kroft chooses not to look around the room and see if anyone else is reeling.
Ileosa Arabasti is Visibly Chairing The Committee.
Winning.
Well.
Hopefully Ileosa was just persnickety about the phrasing, and won't try to moderate Kroft's moderation if she's careful not to imply that she's in charge of anything.
Because otherwise, things might get hairy.
If the ex Field Marshall isn't moderating the discussion, probably that means that no one is?
Oh for crying aloud!
Is Orianna Delmore not allowed to so much as smile without Cangi and Irevotnin scowling at her?
Right!
Anyway.
If you think of something to say, please speak up - or, if you don't want to interrupt someone who is speaking, write it down!
Have paper from my Bag of Holding!
Have pens!
At this point in the process, there's no such thing as a stupid idea.
You might be surprised.
Is that our cue?
That sounds like our cue.
Y'all have fun with it.
I would have expected you to be all over this.
Isn't life full of little surprises.
Here's a small mercy: it's the 14th of Neth - the eleventh month.
This calamity could hardly have been better timed for us - the harvest is in, yet the roads clear of snow.
The solution writes itself: simply construct shelters with walls thick enough to withstand the shadows, and evacuate the country within them.
If we pretend Korvosa's lands[1] form a grid 200 miles wide by 200 miles long, and we need a shelter at every ten-mile intersection if people are to reach them by sundown -
-
1. Contrary to an earlier tag that has since been corrected, Varisia doesn't need spatial shenanigans to fit everyone. I made an exceedingly silly error that I caught while writing Reebs's tag. ↩
Tile it in hexagons! it's more space-efficient -
- we'd need four hundred such shelters -
on a grid the diagonal is half again the length -
which doesn't seem practicable to construct, let alone solve ingress, egress, and airflow for.
What do you have against hexagons, Reeves?
What did hexagons ever do to you?
I was as a small child once stung by a bee.
I swore a solemn oath never again to abide any shape or subject or matter that smacked to me of beeishness.
And my word is my bond.
...Really?
No.
While four hundred is doubtless an overestimate, as people are not evenly distributed, we have neither the spells nor diamond dust to create a dozen such structures, let alone dozens or hundreds.
Reebs, you utter moron.
Four hundred is clearly an overestimate, because people aren't evenly distributed. Not that it matters, since we don't have the juice to build even twelve of these bunkers you're proposing.
...
...
Master Delmore, please.
Reebs is hell-damned, I'm acclimatizing him by stages.
Kindly cease.
Hm, what if instead of making people walk to a number of central locations, we boosted someone's movespeed way up and had them run around collecting everyone? Boost their carrying capacity way up too, or dump the people in Bags of Holding or Portable Holes?
A hippogriff can cover 18 miles in an hour, a Portable Hole fits fifteenish people, Bags of Holding typically less... no, this isn't going to work.
Too many people and too few hippogriffs.
Could we buy Portable Holes from Absalom, through the Pathfinder's Bag of Holding?
Not through that precise mechanism, no.
Also, if we need anything from Absalom we should hash that out soonish so no one has to make more than one trip.
And even with infinite extradimensional storage space or carrying capacity, there are just too many people and not enough hippogriffs.
If we can't hide from the shadows, can we take the fight to them?
Can we take the fight to each of tens of thousands of shadows, every one of which can effortlessly evade us, any one of which is a match for our most competent fighters?
Signs point towards no.
Lyvina will bite her tongue, as she has nothing useful to say here.
Aren't shadows CR 3?
Shadows have the HP of your average CR 4 monster, the to-hit of a CR 5 monster (against unenchanted light armor) or a CR 8 monster (unenchanted heavy armor), or higher, and their damage never falls off.
And none of that is what makes them scary.
What does CR stand for? From context it sounds like a classification system for monsters you've fought?
Biting. Tongue.
....I'm not sulking, you're sulking.
"Challenge Rating."
It's a measure of how challenging something is to defeat. The scale is exponential, so a CR 3 creature is twice as dangerous as a CR 1 creature, a CR 5 twice as bad as CR 3, and so on.
I would have thought "how challenging something is to defeat" too contingent to lend itself to a tidy scale.
Do you find that it works well?
ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
...Why do you use it, then?
Choryon has never considered this question. The CR scale is just a background feature of reality, to her.
I just eyeball things, but not everyone's comfortable with that.
You want to make sure your character can kill anything plus or minus four CR of you.
...She doesn't want to get out into the weeds at this particular moment, but Kroft is going to make a note to herself to ask about "Challenge Ratings" later.
Odds are we're fighting at least one shadow at level 3. What's our plan for it?
I don't know how much help I'd be against one.
Megapope, you've been prepping magic weapon, right?
Natch.
I've got it too. Twice.
If we do have to fight a shadow at third level, let me tank the hits.
Barry's got a plan!
But does he plan to share it?
Not where the GM can hear.
There's no group I'd rather game with.
If we can't fight shadows and there's no plan for fighting shadows, in the long run isn't everyone we help survive doomed anyway?
How are we going to do the planting in the spring?
That's in the "important but not urgent" quadrant, also known as the quadrant we clear out later.
Hell will provide.
How much material assistance is Hell able and willing to provide?
Uncharacteristic sincerity here: you don't want Hell's help.
Reebs doesn't know yet.
He's waiting on a sending from the Pit, in case they have instructions he should follow.
As getting information out of the Outer Planes is expensive for them, an hour from now the Archbishop will prepare and cast lesser planar ally.
He hopes that this course of action will have been anticipated and the devil can fill him in on the details - and, Hell willing, sent along with a portable hole full of foodstuffs.
If it wasn't he'll tell it to arrange that and be ready for his next casting of the spell.
Why not send to Hell yourself?
Lesser planar ally is the same circle spell.
Arbiter Zenobia Zenderholm thinks that Korvosa should offer Axis and Heaven the chance to underbid Hell.
Hell can almost always sell things for cheaper.
That, she will note, depends on what value you place on the final destination of your immortal soul.
In the long run we're all damned.
Maybe you're all damned!
(Suckers.)
Kroft would like for Zenderholm - and Tuttle, if he's available by then - and a competent lawyer from Axis - and also Toff Ornelos - to look over any contract Reebs or Ileosa wind up signing.
"My advice," the hemotheurge known as Togomor forms the intention to say and has the experience of saying, "is to just starve in your hole. Never make deals with a devil."
No one acknowledges that he said anything, so it must be that he didn't.
Not that he particularly expected anything else.
Accept, for the sake of the argument, that we can't save everyone. We can't build hundreds of shadowproof shelters... but can we build three?
One in Veldraine, one in Palin's Cove, one in Harse. And then everyone who can escape within escapes within, with all the provisions they can carry, and everyone who cannot cannot.
In the spring -
In the spring many unaccustomed to it will have to try their hands at tilling soil.
If I saw better options I would state them.
I have, alas, cast as many as several seventh-circle spells today.
I can cast your one phase door, but any more beyond that and my congeniality may not survive.
I don't know what you mean by that.
A master of hemotheurgy can renew spent spells with the magic in their own blood, as from a Pearl of Power.
This man, Togomor, is beyond doubt the greatest hemotheurge I've either met or credibly heard tell of,
You are entirely too kind, Mr. Zey!
- but he may yet share their characteristic weakness.
When a hemotheurge presses their abilities too far they go murderously insane, casting lethal spells on all about them.
Even as all at once their arteries burst and they bleed to death within their own skin.
Ah.
Let's avoid that, then.
Related thought: can we rent a Pearl of Power from Absalom?
Or three of them?
A seventh-circle Pearl?
I can quote you a price, but you won't like it.
Might go for it anyway.
If we can only save the people within walking distance of a handful of cities, that's terrible but worth so much money to us.
Do we actually need phase door?
What if instead we used hallow with death ward? Sure, it's a lot of fourth-circle spells, but we've got Zenderholm, Reebs, and can probably contact the Pharasmans upstairs.
And hire clerics through the Bag if we have to!
Two problems with hallow. First, the area of effect isn't that large by the standards of shelters -
Cast it multiple times -
- and second, it takes 24 hours to cast.
Ah.
Yeah.
What we really need is more time.
Mm.
More time - or more daylight.
In Westcrown we had streetlamps, and if you were out at night it was somewhat safer to stick near them.
Oh! That's brilliant!
Streetlamps are brilliant?
Almost by definition!
But what we need is a second sun.
Or something else the size of a guinea and roughly as shiny.
I guess you could go there? Or, if you had an infinite supply of continual flame spells...?
Continual flame has an expensive material component and it says in the setting doc that spell-like abilities typically still need those.
Ah, well, that's me thwarted.
By all means continue, Ra.
In Westcrown the shadow beasts never burgle homes.
We're not dealing with Wescrani shadows, and if we were there'd be a simpler solution!
I wouldn't count on it still being the case that Wescrani shadows stay out of doors.
Kroft is going to make a note to ask what changed about Wescrani shadows - and about shadows in general.
Varisian shadows were never polite enough to stay out in the street, but somehow neither did they ever tear through her nation. That must have something to do with Rovagug's intervention, but - she has so many confusions there.
She doesn't want to interrupt the conversation about the sunlight, though - she wants to A) know if creating a second sun is within the purview of miracle, and B) know if that would actually suppress all shadow activity.
Do you have anyone who can cast miracle?
We could hire someone - if we can source a diamond for it.
Wish-grade diamonds aren't pebbles that you find in the garden, and it wouldn't surprise Kroft in the slightest if no one in possession of one is willing to part with it today for any price that Korvosa can pay.
Miracle takes 25,000 gp in diamond dust, which might be easier to source piecemeal.
It says in the setting doc that miracles take whole diamonds, like wishes, so the diamonds themselves are major strategic resources more than just the face-value of the gem.
It worked for Joshua!
"I think Tian Xia would invade us if we did that."
"No they wouldn't! Our sun god is alive and functional but theirs is a total wreck!"
Suns are like holes into the positive energy plane, right, so we just need a Gate into there up in the sky.
Most stars contain a rift to the plane of positive energy. That does not make them the same thing.
Making another sun sounds hard. Teleport is a thing, right, and stars are like other suns? We just need to teleport a second star over. It'd even be good for the teleporter wizards because once we have the sun problem fixed we won't have to lean on them so much.
You cannot teleport a star.
Of course she can't, she's not a wizard.
You're all missing the obvious trick.
Permanent image.
My trig is super shaky, but if I didn't fumble a number somewhere:
Permanent image can create a disk 36 feet across. Plant that sucker 4,000ish feet in the air, and it'll look the same size that the sun does.
Then, an object 4,000 feet in the air can be seen for 80 miles.
We take Reebs's square grid -
Don't you dare take Reebs's square grid.
- and put a sun down every eighty miles.
That's less than nine images.
6.25.
Sounds doable to me.
The square grid is lying to you.
It's going to take ten uses of the spell, or more, or less; it depends on the shape of the thing you're trying to tile.
Still sounds doable to me.
Can permanent image imitate the brightness of the sun? Or - illuminate anything at all? It's a mental effect.
If permanent image were Mind-Affecting, it'd say so in the spell description.
Figments like permanent image are neither phantasms nor patterns.
They neither rely on nor prey upon a victim's imagination - rather they are figments projected from the spellcaster's.
Though it's hardly a surprise that lazy Lyvina Mayyad pays as little mind to her masters of Illusion as she does her class on Evocations.
You must love the taste of leafy greens, Vodka.
Are we rolling initiative? I got an 18!
...No?
Come on, prof, pick the fight, I wanna do something this session.
I -
Salgar, be polite to my fucking bodyguards.
....Irevotnin does not feel like he is the party in the wrong here??
Figments apparently aren't mind-affecting even though if you pass a Will save you can see straight through them.
Because that makes sense.
Yes!
Yes it makes sense!
If you can't see the sense of it that is your problem, not - magic's?
??
Irevotnin is so incensed that he's going to cast a silent image for Lyvina to look at.
You can disbelieve a figment and see it for the illusion that it is, but the figment remains. Observe!
See the hopping rabbit on the table? You're quick enough to suspect it as an illusion, yes? Now disbelieve in it and see it for the optical illusion that it is? Notice how your own mind had filled in texture and opacity that the illusory rabbit doesn't have, but what you were seeing hasn't changed, only your understanding of it?
Figmentary noises still bedevil you if you disbelieve their reality, you're just aware of what they are.
Likewise figmentary images still appear as they always did, but if you're watching for it you can see the sleight of hand.
Oh, so it's a weird magic eye thing!
Figments aren't weird, they're normal. Though they are, he supposes, both magic and "eye things."
If you insist on describing them as would a toddler.
How's this for a summary:
Figments look like they look like things, but that's a trick and they actually look like other things. But if they look like anything at all, and it's not mind-affecting, they've got to be absorbing light and reflecting it.
The question is, can they make light too?
Can you see a figmentary wall of fire in a dark room? If you can, can you see an figmentary wall of ice just as clearly?
If you can't see the wall of ice, can you read by the light of the wall of fire?
Can you create an figmentary spectroscope?
Since he's already maintaining the silent image, Irevotnin will create a figmentary spectroscope by means of demonstration.
It produces light - if dimmer light than your eyes might have you believe.
It doesn't say in the book that silent image can increase the Light Level of a room.
It doesn't say in the book that a wall of fire can, either.
...Fair.
Can you use silent image to make bright enough light to Blind or Dazzle? I'm going to use that trick if I can.
The maximum luminous output of a silent image is far beneath that of the sun, but it seems that way at a glance and can be a useful distraction.
At a glance? Is that a "if they study it carefully they get a save" at a glance or a "this counts as interacting and they get a save" at a glance?
Probably the latter.
Then the permanent image plan is a bust anyway!
Even if they disbelieve the full effect, it still makes some light.
Strung up a bunch of them?
That wouldn't raise the Light Level beyond what one could do.
I think it should.
If putting two candles together weren't brighter than having only one, the campaign setting wouldn't have chandeliers.
Where there aren't explicit rules for something, we use physics or our common sense.
..........
OK.
Hold up a moment...
Wikipedia says that sunrise or sunset on a clear day is 400 lux (lumens per square meter), that an overcast day is 1000 lux, that full daylight is 10,000 through 25,000 lux, that direct sunlight is 32,000 to 100,000 lux.
If we assume that every square meter of the permanent image gives off light like a search and rescue spotlight, 50,000 lumens, and then spread that over 80 miles by 80 miles, aka 6,400 square miles, aka more than 16 billion square meters... that's 0.004 lumens per square meter.
I don't think we can cast the spell enough times for it to matter.
Well, that's one hope dashed. Could we do the same thing but with a brighter spell?
If we can source the diamond, it would be worth it to ask by commune if it can be done with miracle.
And ask whether the shadows would just brave the light if they got hungry.
But we'd need. Well. A diamond.
Hey, I just had a thought.
If the shadows eat everyone in Cheliax, who's going to guard the Worldwound?
Cressida Kroft hadn't thought of that, and she really, really should have.
And if they eat everyone in Lastwall, who's going to guard against the return of Tar-Baphon?
Geb will be less harmed than its neighbors. They might look about themselves and think the Inner Sea ripe for conquest.
Do you know who else will be relatively unharmed? The gearmen and Iron Gods of Numeria.
Robots versus demons versus zombies vie for dominance in a world that fell to shadows!
I'll loot a lasergun and make popcorn.
..It feels like she was flying and her flight was dispelled and now she's in freefall.
There's a similar lurch to it.
She's realizing how feeble and absurd the hopes that she'd thought audacious and perhaps beyond her.
She'd been living in an impossible world where if she could hold Korvosa together the rest of the world would have to handle itself.
She hadn't even faced up to the real challenge to fail at it.
Cressida Kroft was born in 4673 AR, 67 years into the Age of Lost Omens.
When she was one year old, the red dragon named Glarataxus set fire to Korvosa.
Pursued by the Sable Company, Glarataxus then crossed Conqueror's Bay to lay waste to Veldraine. When the hippogriffs caught up to him there, he traveled up the coast to Palin's Cove and ate their Lord Mayor.
After that he flew back to his mountain layer, free as a merry moth.
4674 AR marked the sixth occasion in the past hundred years that Glarataxus left his cave and set at least one Korvosan city on fire.
The attacks were getting worse as the dragon aged.
There was no plan in the works to avert attack number seven.
And if you'd said Glarataxus was the worst problem facing Korvosa at the time - or even in the top five - you'd have been incredibly mistaken.
4674 pretty much set the tenor of Cressida Kroft's life.
There's an old Abadaran saying that's taken on new life across Golarion in the hundred years since Aroden died: "There is a great deal of ruin in a nation."
But by 4690, Korvosa's ruin seemed pretty well plumbed.
They'd held out for heroes but the heroes they'd had - Toff Ornelos and Queen Domina Arabasti are the big names here - only slowed the acceleration of the decay.
No one was adding ruin to the ruinous stockpile.
So in a way, the entire world coming apart is just a return to form.
The problem is flatly impossible, multi-headed like a hydra, and each and every head seemingly a match for her.
It used to be that every big problem looked that way, but she'd dig in and find a way to make it work.
Cressida Kroft joined the Korvosan Guard in the winter of 4692.
She made Watch Sergeant in the spring of '93.
In 4699 she had Glarataxus tracked down and helped kill him.
The dragon problem had seemed important-but-not-urgent to her since before she could read, and one day she was happily surprised to find it at the top of her list of priorities.
4701 was the year she really attacked the important-but-not-urgent list.
And none too soon: one suspicion led to another and before the year was out she'd rounded up half a dozen cultists of Norgorber who'd been planning some kind of mass poisoning.
She was made Field Marshall in 4702.
By 4707 people had mostly stopped saying that Korvosa was in decline.
Sure, the kingdom was still running a massive deficit, crushing poverty marred the capitol's streets and rooftops, Old Korvosa was haunted by crime and strange disappearances, bandits ruled the roads and pirates had free run of the waves (if less and less each year), Shoanti raided the holdings with little fear of repercussion, the king was widely and rightly disrespected, the succession in doubt.
But things were trending up and it was clear to see.
...She'd put so much effort into building Korvosa up into something that could survive anything the world had to throw at it.
She'd been proud of it.
Proud of her... success.
It hadn't felt like that at the time, but for the past year, last year and a half - hadn't she been resting on her laurels?
Why didn't she study monsters in greater breadth, instead of chasing diminishing returns prepping for threats she knew Korvosa could handle?
Now the world is falling to manifold apocalypse, and... Korvosa is going to miss Golarion's doomed last stand.
If there's someone somewhere out there that did a better job than she did, they'll have to fight Rovagug and the Worldwound and Geb and the Numerian Iron Gods alone.
While Korvosa dies with a useless whimper.
The mood in the room is abject despair.
The pressure that's on them is unbearable.
Some express it as anger, others as nervous energy, or wipe tears from their eyes or excuse themselves and leave.
Even the Field Marsh - even Cressida Kroft sits quietly, fiddling with her pencil.
"Does someone," she asks levelly, "happen to have calm emotions prepared? I'm rather out of sorts, and likely not the only one."
More than one person assumes that she's covering for their own emotional display; it's the kind of thing she'd do.
Ileosa can sing.
It gives a bonus against fear.
That helps.
Thank you.
Right!
Anyway, I think the next question I have is, can we source a diamond?
What our strategy is, I think, depends on that.
Standing offers in Absalom for a wish-diamond range all the way up to 20,000 sphinxes.
What's that in sails?
200,000.
Gods.
Is there anyone selling at that price?
If so they haven't advertised it.
So... no miraculous miracle.
There are beings which can grant a mortal creature's deepest wishes without the use of a diamond.
I would offer to sell my own soul, out of love for Korvosa, were it yet mine to sell.
...We're thinking about it.
...
Togomor looks down at the letter that he started.
He is somewhat - though not extremely - surprised to see a pencil sketch of his own face. In the drawing he wears a sly smile, and holds a finger to his lips.
It's a pretty good sketch, for how long he worked on it. And without a mirror for reference!
Time well spent.
Well, you can't say he didn't try.
He'll fold his portrait up and pocket it.
Lyvina thinks that maybe the GM's story is the Field Marshall sells her soul to save the country, goes evil, and that's why the party has to fight her later.
She's not going to say her prediction out loud.
She's certainly not going to complain that it's contrived.
That it doesn't make any sense for diamonds to be the bottleneck resource in making all your wildest dreams come true, in a world with blood money and fabricate.
It's not even that contrived, as stories go.
And the GM did a good job making the Field Marshall seem formidable, she's sure it'll be frightening to face her as an enemy.
The GM put a lot of work into this campaign and they deserve for Lyvina to be impressed with and delighted by it.
She's certainly not going to say that if contract devils don't need diamonds for wishes,
they could just have Togomor sucker one with planar binding,
charm it,
geas it,
put it under a Helm of Opposite Alignment for Good measure
(a terrible thing to do to a person, but +utility on net),
press the Helpful geased Chaotic Good devil for three wishes,
demand both copies of the soul contract,
destroy them,
rinse and repeat.
She's just not going to say it.
Toff Ornelos has experience binding greater devils, and is as yet free to make Axis.
I'd like to consult him on what precautions one should take.
"We have eighth-level spells and can purchase ninths, we can bind devils and they don't need gems, we can use physics and common sense where there aren't any rules, but it makes complete and total sense for diamonds of all things to be the limiting input for warping reality to our whims."
Whoops.
She said it.
...Mayyad, a word with me in private?
Sorry. Um.
Iff you insist.
Something about the - inherent injustice of material components(?) was the final straw, but Lyvina Mayyad was frustrated going into the meeting.
Somewhat sullen, somewhat checked out.
There are innumerable possible reasons for that on this the 14th of Neth, and each of them is more valid than the last.
...But Kroft's money is on something Ileosa said or did as a major contributing factor.
Ileosa has a way of upsetting people, and Lyvina seemed cheerful enough before spending a lot of time with her.
And Mayyad didn't seek out Kroft to talk to, because - and Cressida Kroft really really shouldn't find this as easy as she does to forget - new recruits don't magically know what their options are.
(Some days it feels like an inviolable rule that people only bring problems to her when she both isn't needed and can't help solve them.)
Lyvina probably didn't think of "complain that the reigning monarch of Korvosa is abusive towards her" as a possible solution to her woes even to dismiss to it as an option.
Plus there's confusion with the chain of command, where Sabina Merrin is nominally in charge and also incompetent as an impartial mediator.
And Kroft gave her new recruits an expedited orientation.
And she already knew that Mayyad's reluctant to propose things when it could make a superior look bad!
Cressida Kroft is a careless scoundrel.
"I haven't checked in with you since pairing your team with Queen Ileosa. How are you holding up?"
Um, okay, that's - not what I expected this conversation to be about.
Um.
It's been alright, I guess?
What did you expect the conversation to be about?
I - haven't been having as much fun as I could be having, and, I don't think - I don't think that's because of the, I get that you're doing something different from the standard Pathfinder game and different isn't necessarily bad in fact different is usually good and new experiences are good and it's quite possible that, the dumb thing is that it's quite possible I'd enjoy this game a lot, that I'd be enjoying it a lot, if it were just - presented in a different way, if it had been presented in a different way, and that's ridiculous of me and I know that's ridiculous of me, see, I think the problem is that we weren't clear on expectations and we had different expectations from each other and I'll come around to enjoying the game I'm sure and you put a lot of work into it and I hate how your puzzle didn't have the payoff for you that you wanted it to but on the bright side I think Altronus loved it but it didn't land for me because I didn't realize what you were doing so things like having people comment on our player character traits pulled me out of the game because in the version of the world that I thought existed many of those weird traits didn't exist right I assumed that the setting made sense with us as a part of it instead of making sense as a thing that we were added to and I viewed our actions and NPC actions as a lossy approximation of what those characters were doing in the actual world of the game so like if Altronus eats a pound of halfling wandermeal once every three days to reset his starvation timer and only "wastes" a 5 silver ration when he needs to reset his timer against ascorbate deficiency that's not necessarily canon to the campaign setting - maybe it is or maybe it isn't - but if Altronus makes a movie reference that's definitely not canon is what I was thinking, that's how I thought of it in my head, and now you're saying that the goofy wandermeal thing he's doing is definitely canon and the movie references are canon too and also we're a party of crazy people who dreamed up Planet Earth and that could be really fun I think if you'd said at session zero that you were going to run a game like that I'd have been hyped but I built a serious character and I had a backstory and a personality for her and this - when Ileosa read my mind you told me what my character was thinking and it wasn't what I'd thought my character was thinking and that's - it's - violating is a strong word but what my character is thinking in their own head is something I'm supposed to have control over or at least is something that I'm accustomed to having control over you know Machiavelli said something about restoring ancestral rights being one of the most popular things a Prince can do and taking them away one of the worst possible ideas not that that's really all that relevant right now I'm sorry about the tangent, my point is I didn't plan for Lyvina to be a crazy person and all of this would have worked better for me - it would have worked better for me if you'd set expectations outside the game or even when we were bumbling around trying to - when we were bumbling around if you'd told us out of character what your expectations were so we were playing a game together instead of it being you who's playing a game on us and you should have just it would have worked better for me if you'd just told us what you were doing out of character instead of trying to solve out of game problems inside the game is how I feel but it worked fine for Altronus you know he enjoyed it and you know you try things and sometimes they work and I don't want to say that it's your fault or my fault it's just an unfortunate thing that happened and we move on we live and we learn
[pause for breath]
and there's a there's this thing where like okay this campaign is trying to bill itself as a setting where you can do anything because it's open world and people do clever things like buy things through their bags of holding or block the doorway with commanded shadows or use mage's magnificent mansions as a food-producing spell I never even looked at it that way I always thought that mage's magnificent mansion was kind of a useless spell but the thing is that I wouldn't have ever looked at it that way because there are easier ways to make food and I already know them so that isn't what would jump out at me when reading the spell and there's something of a central theme or one of the central themes I'm not going to pretend like I've entirely figured out where you're going with this I know you want us to figure that out and if you it's really dumb I know it's dumb that I'd probably enjoy that if I'd just I know it's a passing mood so I'm not sure we really need to talk about this and maybe it'd be going better if I wrote things down and put my thoughts in order but there's this theme where the setting is exploitable and you can come up with good ideas and they won't be shot down and this is a story about coming up with good ideas and implementing them and maybe the game is supposed to be unwinnable if we can't cheese things hard enough but the problem is, the problem is that works for Barry and for Arthur because they're allowed to try as hard as they can and it's just good clean fun but if I tried as hard as I could we wouldn't have a game because I know the system better than that's not strictly true maybe in our group I'm just at the Pareto Frontier of system mastery and mindset and I wouldn't be casting permanent images or feeding people with mage's magnificent mansions I'd be casting infinite wishes and feeding people with hydras and you tried to reassure me early on when the King was dead and no one liked the new Queen and I'm not sure whether we're supposed to be on her side or not because people hate her for the dumbest reasons but she also independently of that seems kind of mean but at the time I thought she was going to be an arc villain maybe she still will be I don't know but I said "why not just resurrect the King" and I didn't want to make your life harder and I remembered reading on the boards that there's an Adventure Path where that's a huge plot hole so I came up with a reason why it'd make sense for them not to have tried resurrecting him but you had the Field Marshall uh the Watch Sergeant that everyone calls the Field Marshall you had her say that it was a good idea and she hadn't thought of it and I think that was meant to reassure me that this was an open world kind of game but the problem is that there still are rails somewhere because I know you aren't going to let me cast free wishes and I don't know where the rails are and it hurts, it hurts to give me that kind of hope, to say that it's an open world, and I'm free to just play, and maybe you even believe it because you - you don't get how close the world is to falling over, but if I press the matter you'll have to respond, so maybe I'd prefer to just know where the constraints are so I'm free to optimize within those constraints but you can't hold the rules and the setting in your head so you think you're fine if I cut loose but you're not, and it hurts more to kind-of-try than it does to just follow the rail-road tracks, and both are better than actually putting in a real effort and getting slapped down for it.
Lyvina Mayyad is crying, now.
Either that heaping plate of word salad is key to everything strange about that group of four, or Lyvina Mayyad is having a psychotic episode.
Or, y'know.
Both.
"Lyvina. You should drink some water and lay down for a while. I'll ask Choryon to watch you."
I, I would like to talk about our expectations outside the game, because this isn't - it isn't funny when I'm trying to talk to you about the thing where talking to you only affects things insofar as my character saying those things inside the game would have that effect, and then you ignore me or else have an NPC respond like I said it all aloud!
.......There is literally no way that Kroft can respect that request, other than by walking away, which... is emphatically not the play here.
Her aim should be to get Lyvina hydrated, horizontal, and somewhere quiet, with someone that knows her well and cares about her in the same room.
...Either that, or take everything at face value and ask how to get free wishes.
You know, just to check.
Is blood money a spell in this setting?
ABSOLUTELY not.
Fabricate?
No one has invented THAT.
Simulacrum?
Otolmens has a MACRO to squish ALL of those AND their casters whenever She presses the SPACEBAR.
Instant summons?
...Instant summons exists TENTATIVELY.
What is it you WANT with INSTANT SUMMONS?
I've at least heard of instant summons.
Wrap a chunk of graphite in something heavy, toss it in your local gas giant, instant summons it back out.
...Huh.
Has anyone tested whether that works?
It doesn't work. You're going to think it over and realize that you don't want it in your setting.
And then you're going to realize that putting graphite under a few hundred thousand atmospheres of pressure in a world without thermodynamics is trivially easy, and you'll have to make a sweeping rule, and you'll have to know about yourself that your game has rails.
And every time I'm asked for my ideas you're going to realize more rails.
My headcanon is that diamonds have to spend millions of years in the ground soaking up magic energy before they're useful as spell components, maybe you could use that.
...But do you know any reason that it shouldn't work?
Has anyone actually tested it?
Does this look like a world where diamond manufacture is that easy?
If it were that easy, wouldn't someone have already done it?
Probably, but you can't just assume!
Cressida Kroft has an interested layman's knowledge of the sciences. Particularly but not exclusively in their practical applications.
She knows that "graphite", more commonly known as "black lead", is not a type of lead at all (nor even a metal) being instead an allotropic form of charbon, like charcoal or, yes, diamond.
And she's aware that diamonds are formed when charbon is compressed by the gargantuan pressures within Golarion (a planet which has understandably put rather more thought into how diamonds are formed than Earth had at an ~equivalent level of technological progress).
She knows that the worlds of Liavara and Bretheda are giants with titanic gravity, because she's read things written by adventurers who've visited them.
She knows that the weight of gas exerts pressure, and that sufficient pressure will liquefy it even at great temperatures.
She knows that deep water will crush you to death, because sometimes she has to kill things which think they can hide from her down there.
She can make the inferential leap that beneath the atmosphere and oceans of such a titanic planet the pressure must be immense - possibly of a level with the depths Golarion's mantle.
And she knows about the seventh-circle arcane spell instant summons, and can readily generate substitutes (cast life bubble and teleport straight to the bottom, wait for your charbon to cook, teleport back out) because sometimes she works with or against some of the most powerful wizards in Varisia.
But thinking up this method of diamond manufacture requires several concepts none of which are widely known. And, where they are known, or known-of, concepts which aren't familiar enough to most people to incorporate them in their plans.
There are intelligent, educated men and women who think that the world's diamonds were hidden with individual care and foresight by Torag when He built Golarion.
How many people on Golarion have all the component parts to understand Lyvina's plan once spoken, or the potential to produce it themselves? Less than a million people? Probably less than half that?
I would expect, if you could get diamonds by dropping them in gas giants, for it to have been uncovered already.
Honestly, I'd expect the Azlanti to have known, and for Aroden to have recorded it in The History and Future.
And if they didn't and He didn't, there's been a lot of motivated and intelligent people who've tried and failed at diamond synthesis.
But you can't just assume.
It's worth testing.
Sometimes you really are the first person to think of something big, it isn't even all that rare.
A sense of... despair, is what comes over her.
She tried to explain, and it just bounced off.
They're still trying to reassure her that she's free to, and encouraged to, optimize within the setting.
Even if the GM winds up banning manufactured diamonds, which they seem to be on the fence about. (Do they not realize what she could do with diamonds?)
They don't get the scale of the problem.
They still think that their setting is workable at its core, and only needs a few problem spells removed and a handful of customized justifications for why no one has tried one thing or another yet.
They don't get that "Europe circa 1750, mostly farmers, except, just stapled on, some people can violate the conservation of mass and energy on a whim," is, for all its representation in fiction, not a normal place.
They have no conception of the fractal impossibility.
The GM has this vision where intelligent and creative people use the spells that exist in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game against the monsters that exist in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, and the GM thinks they'll get a long and interesting story out of that, and they can handle whatever problems come up with lampshades and spot-removal and tweaks.
Which the GM could, if they were only playing with Arthur and Barry and Cheryl.
None of them are going to realize big things that the GM hasn't.
The GM and those three could have a really fun game, together. They'd be pressed to their very limits, and come up with so many ingenious things.
But if Olivia tried to play the game that they were playing...
She doesn't want to upset the GM by torching their game, or push them into figuring out where the limits they don't know about really are, and she doesn't want to put a ton of effort and thought into something that'll somehow fail to pay off.
So her role in this is to sit quietly, help improve and implement Barry and Altronus's ideas, and just enjoy playing games with friends.
...It's just, she'd find going with the flow a lot more fun if the game weren't so self-directed.
Her heart yearns for a true Open World Experience, as a Player and not as a forever GM watching, and it hurts that other people get to have that right in front of her but she's still not allowed to have that type of fun.
"How many things like instant summonsing diamonds out of Liavara are you willing to come up with contrived explanations for?
I don't buy that manufacturing diamonds has never been successfully tried, even after accounting for how sometimes you'd expect someone somewhere to have done a thing but no one has.
But, say that I did buy it!
Basically every spell with a measurable duration could transform the setting, Barry and Arthur were talking about permanent image and they were being Innovative or they thought they were, but the spell is visible for dozens of miles day or night and a first-level wizard could cast it from a staff and you mentioned renting pearls of power so renting magic items is clearly a thing so why don't people use permanent image for mass communication? Mass media? You could build an entire Fantasy Setting where the setting conceit was that some people could cast permanent image, and it would be a fantastic story full of genius shit I'd never come up with in a million years and the minute after it was published there'd be people on AO3 pointing out how clearly they should already be doing this that and the other thing.
Or what about fly? What would you do if the setting were wildly inconsistent with people being able to cast it? Fly is a D&D staple, but have you ever really thought about the spell fly?"
...Kroft's disinclination to conduct the conversation under false pretenses is deeply at odds with how Lyvina is upset whenever her occasionalist Gamemaster chooses to cause Cressida Kroft to say things "in character."
She's super not sure how to handle this.
...She suspects that she's never "really" thought about the spell fly.
People on Golarion have been flying for thousands of years.
They also have the concept of a hang glider.
The rules for a hang glider don't give a maximum distance, and that's fairly realistic.
Albatross ride the wind around the world, barely flapping their wings. With their long skinny wings, they have a lift-to-drag ratio of twenty to one (20-1), which is very impressive... for a bird.
In theory they should lose one foot of altitude for every twenty feet they glide. In practice, they effortlessly gain altitude, riding updrafts.
The question of how far a glider can travel is therefore a complicated one.
Early human-built gliders had a lift-to-drag much worse than an albatross. Otto Lilienthal's Normalsegelapparat had a lift-to-drag of 4-1, no better than a house sparrow (and you've seen how those poor things must flap). Launched from the top of a hill, no one flew further than a few hundred feet.
Modern gliders aren't like that at all.
At their ideal speed, hang-gliders have a lift-to-drag ratio of 10-1. Someone skilled with a hang-glider can ride it more than five thousand feet into the air, and fly for hours before coming down.
High-performance sailplanes, with humans inside closed cockpits rather than dangling below, have lift-to-drag ratios greater than 50-1.
It's an interesting piece of path-dependence that Earth's humans spent so long fascinated with bird flight, and only finally learned the principles to fly with even less effort than they do after we'd already brute-forced the problem with internal combustion.
On Golarion, though, the people fascinated with bird wings should find the problem more tractable than old Otto Lilienthal.
They have magical flight! And feather fall! And they've had thousands of years to iterate on designs!
Once you have a glider as good as Otto Lilienthal's - modeled, as his was, off the wings of birds - how far can you fly with it?
The oversimplified answer is "you can go lengthwise as far as the height you jumped from, multiplied by four." In practice, with practice, you should be able to do better - riding updrafts and thermals.
A third-circle wizard casts fly at CL 5 and goes straight up; she makes it 36,000 feet before the spell wears out. Multiply that by four, and we know she can glide at least 27 miles.
Within ten years of Lilienthal's glider we had the Wright brothers' flier, with its lift-to-drag of 8.5-1. Dropped from cruising altitude of 36,000 feet, it could glide at least 58 miles.
We'll add an aerodynamic cockpit - it's pretty chilly way up in the stratosphere - and say that gets us 10-1, same as a modern hang-glider. 68 miles and change. We'll say competent flying gets us half-again the gliding distance, and round that down to a range of 100 miles.
So what does the fantasy setting look like where wizards can cause people to fly?
Trained beasts of burden (ant hauled, in settings that have it) lift big ol' sailplanes that fit dozens of people or thousands of pounds of cargo, take 'em way up into the sky, let go of them and let 'em land on other cities.
Now, 100 miles of range is pretty okay.
It gets you a sixth of the way from Korvosa to Egorian on a third-circle spell in less than two hours.
(And obviously, since they've had thousands of years to work on this, it'd make sense for them to have gliders as good as Earth had in the seventies, which would get them 5/6ths of the way there, but we're using conservative assumptions.)
But I feel like we can do better, right?
It'd be good for the Empire if we could fly back and forth from the new capitol.
Let's set our target at 300 miles per fly, so that a wizard with two third-circle transmutation spells per day can do this all on their lonesome.
(Not every CL 5 wizard can cast fly twice, but if you add up the transmutation specialists, bonded objects, and sixth-level-or-higher characters, it's got to be a decent fraction of them.)
(Or so a CL 10 wizard could do it with one casting of the spell.)
We can always stand to increase the lift-to-drag ratio of our glider. We could increase the length of the wings with darkwood or magic (if the bottleneck is the strength and weight of the materials), or magically levitate it to increase lift without increasing drag, or increase its speed (this has a dual benefit in that it gets you where you're going faster).
One obvious solution is to ask an air elemental to push or/and carry it, which should in and of itself be sufficient to make air travel a favored mode of transportation, but that would take a fifth-circle wizard to planar binding the elementals and we're wedded to our vision of doing this on third-circle spells.
Floating disk? No, it sticks to ground level... Decanter of Endless.... nah... you could command undead a poltergeist and task it with spinning a propeller, but I'd like for this to be something a third-circle can do without help or specialized equipment...
...Mage hand should work, actually.
If the propeller weighs 5 lbs or fewer - a wooden propeller could be a hundred inches long and weigh well less than 5 lbs - you could use mage hand on a handle at the base of a blade. Mage hand lets you move an object fifteen feet per round, assume a complete rotation of your handle takes six inches of that, that's 30 rotations a round and 300 a minute...
Ladies.
And.
Gentlemen!
We are mechanized to the tune of, if this online calculator is giving me the right numbers, 140 lbs of thrust!
If our glider weighs less than 450ish lbs it can take off from the ground and stay up there indefinitely.
Which isn't really a glider, at that point.
You heard it here first, folks; laundry wizards are airborne.
...I'm a laundry wizard! I can do this! No need for friendly NPCs!
Lyvina Mayyad has wings!
...But I still want my big beefy glider that can carry a dozen people or a thousand lbs of cargo 300 miles on a third-circle spell, so I'm going to keep whittling away at that...
Oh!
Oh!
Oh!
I have discovered the one reason to prepare open-close.
Simply affix a sliding cabinet drawer to a piston to a crankshaft to a flywheel to a propeller, open-close the drawer to make the propeller spin. You can open-close as a standard action so long as the drawer weighs 30 lbs or less, but the mass of the drawer is only as important here as its acceleration; if you make the drawer long enough, it could apply arbitrary levels of force in the course of three seconds.
Your only limit is the strength and weight of your materials!
We have airplanes, powered by cantrips.
This was always the risk we ran, when we turned on our brains.
Tell me more about pistons and air screws?
Open-close does not work like THAT.
I KNOW that it can't.
If OPEN-CLOSE worked like THAT, it would be the PRIMARY MEANS of PROPULSION.
You're not GETTING THROUGH THIS without Golarion should-have-having a PRIMARY MEANS of PROPULSION unless you ban HALF the SPELLS in the BOOK. And then people would just exploit monsters!
Spot-removal does nothing for you here, I'm swinging at you with lethal damage in 1/1 squirrels.
...and some 12/12 squirrels too! But too many for spot-removal.
You, you say that it's an open world, you say that you won't be angry if I, if I screw up the lesson plan, but when I actually try - no, sorry, if I actually tried, because nothing I've said so far looks like me actually trying, you'd shut me down. You only feel safe to say you won't because you have a bad intuition for what's possible.
And if you didn't know that, now you know.
Pick a, pick a spell out of a hat. Pick one at random, or one that's too iconic to change or delete, and I'll tell you how if you think through the implications it pulps your medieval fantasy setting.
It, it, hurts less, if you tell me that I'm not allowed to optimize too hard, than if you try to convince me that I'm allowed, but you snatch it away when you realize what you've given me.
If you want, I, I'll go back to, I'll go back to not looking closely at or - or - thinking deeply about any of the spells in the rulebook, except insofar as they're useful in combat and if they're too useful in combat I'll stop using them.
Just tell me to do that and I will. You, you can have your fun, open world game where everyone is free to try as hard as they can. Everyone but, but me. Barry isn't going to break anything by trying his hardest, let alone Cheryl, and Arthur's the best at what he does but what he does isn't wide in scope.
You can have a game where they come up with clever tricks and they won't be too clever. But don't tell me that I can do anything I want to do when it isn't true, it hurts too much.
That's all I've been trying to say.
GOOD. Otolmens is HAPPY with this ARRANGEMENT.
May I hug you?
Um.
I, um.
Okay.
Hug.
I'm sorry to have caused you pain.
I'm the one who's been in the wrong. I'm, I'm sorry for lashing out so hard.
It was disproportionate.
I should have taken a walk and written a letter.
I have on net enjoyed and anticipate continuing to enjoy your game.
You're okay. You haven't hurt me at all.
Conclude and release hug.
The timing is absolutely horrible, and yet.
Can we have a conversation "in character"? I think that would really help me right now.
Wearily, but without frustration, Lyvina Mayyad will ask what Kroft wants to talk about.
So.
In-character... are you sure that this Gamemaster exists?
pppppppppppppppppfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
...Well, at least it seems to have cheered Lyvina up, somewhat.
You have looped me entirely around and now I do admire the commitment to the bit.
It'd have been a touch more convincing, I'm afraid, if you'd found someone else to say it!
Consider it, though, and correct me if I'm wrong about something.
You thought that this world was designed to be a fun adventure for your team of heroes.
(That you four were looking for the prepared scenario and expecting to promptly find it makes... a lot of sense out of how your party behaved last night.)
But since then the Gamemaster has done nothing but subvert your expectations.
Isn't that evidence against the Gamemaster theory altogether?
And you expect to be able to communicate with the GM "outside the game," but... you can't.
That also seems suggestive to me!
...And now Lyvina is laughing.
...And hiccuping.
(Kroft's brain flags that that's locally-her-fault but as there's little harm done and no lesson for her in it, dismisses it.)
Out of character, I am listening to you, the Gamemaster, speak these words.
In-character, maybe Kroft can convince Lyvina that the Gamemaster doesn't exist, but Lyvina already thinks that; what I was told when Ileosa read our minds is that in-character our characters think that the Gamemaster is something we made up.
Though... with 20 INT and 20 WIS, there's no way that Lyvina doesn't suspect Earth of being the world that's real. It hangs together a lot better than Golarion does, no offense.
But her experience of Golarion is full-body, audio, visual, the works.
So maybe she thinks... that it's a dream, or that I'm in a coma?
But it feels very real for a dream... maybe Lyvina's priority should be getting my ass to a hospital to get looked at by a psychiatrist.
Or maybe Golarion still feels more real to Lyvina than Earth does, after sixty-eight years living there.
Wait, you're sixty-eight years old?
Samsaran.
Then shouldn't you already know that fly was a fifth-circle spell until they developed a lesser version back in '86?
And feather fall was still third-circle when I joined the Guard?
...I'm sorry for making you do that.
Cressida Kroft will drily say that it was no trouble for her at all.
How long have you had this... character-in-a-game thing going on?
Sigh.
Lyvina would know the answer to that.
Lyvina has been fleshing Earth as a setting out for decades.
It feels very real to her, if not as real as Golarion - sometimes she wonders if it was unwittingly inspired by one of her past lives.
Somewhat recently - but prior to meeting the group - she crossed some threshold, a kind of phase-shift, and now she can describe it and its history as readily as she can the world she really lives in.
Then you should have no trouble describing what the Gamemaster is like - you've been cagey with the details so far.
Lyvina can describe the Gamemaster in any level of detail and does.
(It's something her character would know.)
...To be perfectly frank, the idea that such an unimpressive specimen as this described Gamemaster decides Kroft's words and actions strikes her as implausible even on the face of it.
pffffffft.
And there are much smarter beings in Creation than she.
It seems like an easy test of the Gamemaster theory is to find someone on Golarion who should know something that the gamemaster doesn't, and see if they really know that thing.
I'm game for the test.
Hey, Kroft, what's the most complicated part of activating a magic wand?
Kroft explains the most complicated part of activating a magic wand.
wheeze
I don't understand what's funny.
It's just - just that I, Lyvina Mayyad, imagined what "Olivia Mallard" might have heard there, instead of a proper explanation.
Well played.
You sly devil, I commend you.
...Thanks.
"I think this is the step in the dance where I say 'I'm not crazy! I'm NOT crazy!' in the most unhinged voice I can manage while waving a knife around menacingly."
I don't think you're crazy.
...Haven't you been trying to talk me into realizing that the Gamemaster is a figment of my imagination?
I don't think the Gamemaster is a figment of your imagination.
Wait.
But I think the Gamemaster is a figment of my imagination.
Or at least, I'm not certain that they aren't!
Let's examine the facts.
Last night and this morning, there were fifty attacks by shadows with greater than 500 causalities.
We're given to believe that it was caused by a coalition of deities, led by or working with the Rough Beast in His Dead Vault.
This did not happen a week ago. Nor will it yet begin a week from now.
Yesterday's Golarion was the result of a balance of power which no longer holds.
I'm not sure that we'll ever know why the balance changed - the gods divide their powers and attention across many worlds and planes.
But something changed.
Living in Korvosa, as of last night, dwelt one Lyvina Mayyad, Arch Megapope Olin Mull, Hasagi Choryon, and Altronus.
Each of them survived the attack.
They met and immediately got along.
They had the mien of experienced adventurers, but it was like they'd gotten their experience delving dungeons in the Maelstrom or First World.
It was made clear to those paying attention that there's clearly something very weird going on with your group.
Now I learn that all four of them had, seemingly independently of each other, imagined a world called Earth.
And independently imagined Players to their Characters, and those Players knew each other.
And that was why they behaved in all ways like old allies and friends.
To these strange coincidences, we add our knowledge of the Acadamae apprentice Lyvina Mayyad and Altronus the free ranging mercenary.
Altronus can calculate how far an object in the sky can be seen from, and how much light from it would reach the ground as a proportion of the sun's intensity.
I'm sure that comes up in his day-to-day.
Lyvina has either previously studied lift-to-drag ratios in different birds and gliders, invented air screws, found a way to turn an opening cabinet drawer into rotational force, and has been sitting on those ideas... or else comes from a world where they're commonplace.
Come on.
Earth is real, somewhere out there in Creation.
Either that, or it's a phantasm heavily inspired by somewhere that is.
Now, what I'm skeptical of, is that your occasionalist Gamemaster is who they appear to be.
Do you think that the Gamemaster had something to do with the shadows, because of the coincidence in timing?
Not necessarily.
It's possible that they were just spurred by the shadows to pull the trigger on a work they'd had in progress.
It's even possible that they're broadly aligned with us.
When I asked you what your long term goals were, you said
Apotheosis.
Sorry, that's a cached answer.
Uh, right now our presumptive long-term objective is retaking Korvosa from the shadows.
But... in my experience, every time some eldritch being that hides their true face whispers power and lies into a young wizard's ears, it goes poorly.
It's possible that I've gotten a biased sample, on account of what I do for a living.
Still.
I need a moment to digest this, and figure out what I think.
> be me
> be Lyvina Mayyad, samsaran wizard, who enrolled at the Acadamae despite its ferocious reputation
> because she wanted the power to oppose the world's evil
> and everything else written in my backstory
> be by nature a different person than Olivia Mallard - more willing to take calculated risks, less likely to take uncalculated risks, a little older, a little wiser, but - less clever.
> Able to spend more time making worse plans, and able to believe that those are the best plans that she can generate.
> More likely to take a supporting role, because she's more likely to think that other people's plans are adequate.
> and, importantly, less knowledgeable than Olivia Mallard is in the realm of Earth-lore
> and less of a munchkin
> have an imaginary setting called "Earth" kicking around
> flesh out the details over the course of decades
> at some point wind up with Olivia as a constant mental companion
> and now Lyvina does whatever Olivia says that she should. Why? Well, maybe Olivia gives at the worst at least as good ideas as Lyvina could have
> implied by this is that Lyvina could do something different if she chose to, but that she won't choose to
> or perhaps from Lyvina's perspective the lines between Lyvina and Olivia have blurred so much that it wouldn't be that simple to make a decision independent of Olivia's input
> Olivia knows things that Lyvina doesn't but has a similar motivation structure
> but that's not quite true, is it?
> because Olivia didn't think of Golarion as a real place, didn't deeply care about the well-being of the people in it
> Still doesn't deeply care about the well-being of the people in it.
> That's something that Lyvina is likely upset by.
> and so Olivia never put her mind to tearing Golarion apart and remaking it in her image, as she would if she actually lived there
> Lyvina never realized that Earth was a real place, otherwise she would have said that to Kroft. As it hadn't occurred to her that both Golarion and Earth could both be real (possibly because she's been imagining Earth since the days when it was much less detailed and/or true-to-life, and had the subjective experience of coming up with those details, like a frog being boiled) and Golarion felt more real.
> Since it came out that the other three player's characters had the same experience as her, she's been trying to make sense of things. Her Olivia headmate didn't help, because Olivia found it hard to suspend disbelief about the setting and wasn't engaging with it on that level
> But Kroft's theory makes sense from Lyvina's point of view, and is easily-enough tested in-setting.
> It would also be easy to check whether Olivia is real in-setting.
> What does Lyvina expect to find there?
> Nothing. Olivia is too similar to her. Even her name is based off of Lyvina's (lel).
> Which means that Lyvina hasn't directly experienced Earth; she's had details about it whispered into her mind and then filled in more details from her own imagination, and also invented her own OC.
> And within-setting the game doesn't exist.
> Within-setting it might be a mindscape.
> And there's someone behind it.
> They have a scheme.
> And... this is an awesome plot. It isn't stupid. I'm not sure that it would have worked as well if the GM told us about it up front.
> I shouldn't be trying not to poke at the weirdnesses that are the player characters, because they have an in-universe explanation, and figuring out what that is is part of the campaign.
> Unfortunately, there *are* still lines I shouldn't cross without ruining the GM's experience, and because the GM is doing something so strange it's hard to see where they are.
> Probably cracking the setting like an egg in my hand and forcing them to make up reasons why that hasn't happened before is still across the line.
> My imaginary Lyvina Mayyad is shaking me by the collar
> She's trying to think of some way to suborn me and make me point my brain in the setting-breaking direction
> but unfortunately for her I'm not dumb enough to imagine exactly how she's trying to do that.
What are the decisions which Lyvina Mayyad has made which make no sense in light of what she knows and which she now needs to correct?
Attending the Acadamae was probably a mistake, because her life is more valuable than she thought.
Or it wasn't a mistake, because it happened in her backstory, and no one ever dies in their backstory?
Was becoming a cleric of Ragathiel a mistake?
Would Lyvina in-setting have gotten another wizard level if she hadn't done that?
If Lyvina is able to optimize both on the Golarion level and the game-table level, she should stop throwing good levels after bad. Losing one level of casting hurt bad enough.
Instead, if she's allowed to choose her own build going forward, she should... I already have Spell Focus, for Augment Summons. She can take Bloatmage Initiate, and then the prestige class, so she can get the capstone, so she can get the arcane sorcerer bloodline capstone.
Either that or find some way to increase my Charisma score so I can take Eldritch Heritage.
Is she allowed to optimize across the Golarion level and the game-table level?
One test of that is seeing whether Lyvina can convince Olivia not to take another level of cleric.
I'm confused...
If I don't get any more levels in cleric of Ragathiel, in-universe that can't possibly be deliberate - unless it is - but I think it'd be evidence to the person in-universe that she can control some non-deliberate things by convincing the person who exists outside the universe. But from out-of-universe, that isn't the case, because out-of-universe Olivia Mallard has the experience of deciding on her own not to take more cleric levels, and everything that she thinks Lyvina thinks is just something that she came up with. And then Lyvina has access to all the information that Olivia does, including the subjective experience of deciding not to take more cleric levels.
So, is that evidence from Lyvina's point of view that she controls Olivia, even though there's a strictly simpler explanation that isn't that?
...Okay, I've deconfused myself, Lyvina has to believe that her thoughts are being handed off to Olivia, even if Olivia doesn't believe that. Lyvina doesn't think that Olivia is coincidentally replicating all of her thoughts, she believes in a two-way transfer of communication, which might be two-way all inside her head because she doesn't think Olivia is real.
Yeah, okay, that makes sense.
At some point I need to check in an anti-magic field whether the in-universe explanation for Olivia is magical.
I don't want to rush you, can you tell me when you're available?
Or, to parallelize a little, I'll go fetch Arbiter Zenderholm and the rest of your party while you wait here?
Out of universe the explanation for why Golarion has the same plants and animals and people as Earth is that Earth came first and they were copied from there. In-universe, what's the explanation? I don't buy that they just evolved on both worlds. So, probably they evolved on Earth first and were copied over?
How old is Pharasma's Creation? Is it the full 12 billion years? Kind of odd that it's so underdeveloped if it's had sapients for that long.
Maybe in-universe both Earth and Golarion had their organisms copied over from a third Earth, or an Earth-like world, from outside Creation? Or from before it?
And Earth looks like it's four billion years old in a universe that looks twelve billion years old but it was actually created yesterday in motion?
What do you need Arbiter Zenderholm for?
...To commune with Abadar and tell me how far I should trust you and your otherworldly knowledge.
That makes sense. You should also put us in an antimagic field and see what that does (if anything).
Antimagic fields trade directly against teleports, but maybe.
Kroft will head back to the meeting room to fetch Zenobia and the rest of the party. When she gets there, she intends to say that she intends to spend Korvosa's more-or-less last commune on something, and ask if anyone else has things they'd like asked for if Zenobia winds up with spare questions.
With that intention firmly in mind, Cressida Kroft opens the door...
EARLIER:
...
Well, that was awkward.
...
I hope Liv is doing alright.
...
Does anyone remember that thing she did that time to turn all her first-circle spells into time stops and gates and wishes?
You had to build for it, I think, it wasn't just a spell you cast...
Sorcerer-something, right?
...
I think it was sorcerer-something.
...
...
...
Hey, Cheryl, what are you doing back behind the GM screen?
What else?
GMing.
Those who live in Korvosa respect and admire ostentatious displays of wealth, power, or knowledge. They consider confidence and competence the greatest of assets, and they deride or heckle those who display weakness, indecisiveness, or inability. Korvosans are quick to judge and slow to forgive. [...] In addition to power, Korvosans love predictability. They like to regulate their lives, creating strict regimens for themselves that they then slavishly follow. Upsetting a Korvosan's routine can ruin his entire day and likely makes him cranky.
And to none does this description apply more than it does one Harmanuel Kendall (who is currently leaping to his feet and slamming his hands on the table - with startling force -, as Korvosans are inclined to do).
His routine is upset, and Harmanuel is cranky.
"So what if Golarion is doomed!" he says, "it wouldn't be the first time that's happened!
Canny men have survived worse! But they didn't do it by pissing and moaning and wishing it just weren't so!"
Oh, that's excellent! The Kendall in the room just made a target of himself, which gives the rest of us something to do.
With Improved Initiative and a familiar hare, Master Irevotnin gets the first word in.
"This is worse than Earthfall, which killed all the canny men of Azlant save one."
And we're doing more than piss and moan.
We're selling our souls to Hell.
That counts as a plan, right?
Oh really?
You're planning to sell your soul?
You seem a touch soft for Hell, Gaskelinni.
I bet you'd cry.
Well, right now I'm waiting to see if anyone else does first.
I wouldn't want to sell my soul superfluously, y'know?
I'm not sure my soul would make that big a difference, anyway.
By most accounts the Abyss is no treat, and that's where shadows go.
At least in Hell They have the rule of Law.
I'd like for you to all shut up so I can hear what Harmanuel Kendall has to say.
"So what if Golarion is doomed.
So what if it's worse than anything that's ever happened before.
So what if Axis has failed us, and Heaven, and Hell.
It seems the powers arrayed against Them are more than They can bear.
It is more than just craven to turn to Hell after Their failure in Westcrown - it's mindless. Sell your soul if it'd work, that's patriotism, but if you bind yourself to Hell and Hell loses you are just a moron.
Canny men survived Earthfall.
By turning to dark powers that could pay quid pro quo...
If Axis and Heaven and Hell cannot best the Worldbreaker... let's join Him!"
[commotion]
Well, why shouldn't we!
It worked for the drow!
Drow are just a story.
Not so!
I know a man in Riddleport who meets with one in his basement.
Of course you're friendly with scammers out of Riddleport, and of course you believe their every word.
Hey, now, what's that supposed to mean?
Can you operationalize "joining Rovagug"?
Don't tell me that you're considering it!?
You say "yes, and" to things, Reebs.
It's improv 101.
We know that Rovagug has a bunch of gods on his side, including but not limited to Zon-Kuthon, the one revoluuuuuuuuution!! goddess, and others.
We find out who those gods are and we petition them for aid, instead of selling our souls to the losers (who, stating the obvious here, are also the villains of the entire campaign).
Starting with Snowball, since she's good-aligned.
You want to side with the people who did this to us?
That's craven.
That's politics.
That's war.
If you're not man enough to sit at this table, go spew your idealism at someone who isn't sick already of hearing it.
Who wants to be my ambassador to Nidal?
Nose goes.
Well, since everyone's so eager to ship out, it seems we'll have to draw straws.
You need someone who can teleport to go visit Nidal.
I volunteer Irevotnin.
Whereas I volunteer Master Orianna Delmore.
I rescind my rash suggestion, in light of new revelations.
It's clear now to see that Salgar's disloyal to Korvosa.
Pardon me?
I'd need to know your crime first!
He's trying to stage an international incident.
It's the work of a saboteur.
...She makes a surprisingly good point.
...
This conversation ends with Salgar Irevotnin teleporting to Nidal, doesn't it.
Really, it's his own fault for being halfway competent.
Meanwhile, outside the magnificent conference room...
Eight words resound in the Vault, untrained ears hear but do not hear them.
Nearly six-thousand eyes blink in unison as the world contracts to a point and expands again.
To the highly sensitive, greater teleport announces itself with an unechoing staccato note and a flicker of light too quick to properly register.
To the insensitive, the spell presents as a sudden sense of 'hey what was that.' Usually followed by the erroneous conclusion 'it must have been that person who appeared in my peripheral vision or behind me.'
Guess who's back.
It's Lord Ornelos!
Everyone, look, it's LORD TOFF ORNELOS!
Where have you been?
That sounds like a story!
It's tedious enough schooling that fraction of a fraction of the world's stupid people who are kind enough to pay him for it.
Where's Field Marshall Cressida Kroft? She wanted Toff to put up a magnificent mansion.
Oh, Kroft isn't Field Marshall anymore.
Ileosa fired her and appointed a paramour.
...Ileosa being...?
The Queen of Korvosa.
Wait, the little Westcrown Arvanxi?
And she's, what, appointed a lover to high office while Eodred's body cools?
And none of you did anything about this?
Nine hours.
Toff Ornelos is gone for nine hours and this is what happens.
The city's gone to the Abyss while you were away, Lordship.
He thought Kroft was supposed to keep these things from happening.
Isn't that her job? He's pretty sure that's supposed to be her job.
Well, not anymore.
Not being the Field Marshall never stopped her before she got the position.
He'd know. She was a fucking busybody.
Lord Ornelos intends to give her a piece of his mind.
Cressida Kroft had better be bedridden with a single-digit strength score, there is no other excuse he'll accept from her.
Where is she, anyway?
She's talking to the Queen in one of those magnificent mansions.
Toff Ornelos feels an apoplectic rage coming on.
Cressida Kroft woke him up in the middle of the night to make sure that he prepared that spell.
Because she couldn't find anyone else to cast it.
So he did.
He prepared it.
He gets three seventh-circle spells per day and one of them is mage's magnificent mansion.
Out of curiosity.
Who did she find to cast the spell? There aren't that many wizards at seventh-circle.
Toff likely knows them, it's a small community.
An eighth-circle wizard named Togomor, spoke with a Kaer Magaan accent.
TOGOMOR.
"My ancestral right as Head of House Ornelos is to be heard by the Queen. Who among you for this purpose would it please to join my retinue?"
Is this the sort of party where you can bring your own pitchforks?
Meanwhile, within the magnificent conference room:
It's easy for Kendall to suggest that we join the Worldbreaker.
I know him for a cultist! Yes, a cultist of the Rough Beast!
That's not true!
But it is!
I've known for years, Kendall, and I've kept my peace on this for long enough!
I'll be damned before I see you drag us all down with your apocalyptistic nihilism!
...It really isn't true, though??
(I was actually using an advanced technique there, called lying.)
Harmanuel Kendall has 3 class levels in Korvosan (an archetype of Expert), which gives him a +1 bonus to saving throws against discombobulation due to willful and knowing slander. Unfortunately, it's a very high DC.
In five minutes he'll - l'esprit d'escalier, as they say in Galt - determine that what he should have done is angrily threaten to sue, and demand that his legal fees (and truthspell) be paid for by the loser.
It would have been a fantastically Korvosan response.
Instead he's going to get indignant in a way that
They consider confidence and competence the greatest of assets, and they deride or heckle those who display weakness, indecisiveness, or inability.
damages his credibility.
Ouch.
Yeah, the Committee Chair isn't touching that one; she's not about to throw in with the losing team.
Pity, that - she thought the Rovagug idea had merit.
I figure that lie was a boost for my Law and Good and Lawful Good, since Rovagug is Chaotic Evil.
And it worked so well! I've now decided that slandering Harmanuel Kendall was more of a deliberate decision than I thought it was in those first "oh shit" moments after I blurted it out and before I doubled down.
Also? I've gained (or reinforced) my self-conception as a schemer.
Feeling pretty good about myself right now, not even gonna play it down.
Do we believe that Kendall's a Rovagug cultist?
Obviously not??
Choryon isn't the Gamemaster.
That's true enough.
(Although I have found in my day that player suggestions have a way of becoming canon.)
Yeah, well if Harmanuel Kendall isn't the cultist, who is?
Nobody.
How can you be so confident? Cultists are good at hiding.
Which is why there's a shrine to Urgathoa in the Pantheon of Many.
Does it still count as a cult if they openly practice their religion in your city's largest temple?
No, that's the church of Urgathoa.
The cult of Urgathoa is a totally different thing, and we root them out wherever they are found.
Oh yeah?
What's the difference?
PRESENTATION!
Lord Toff Ornelos, Head of House Ornelos, Headmaster of the Acadamae, heir to the Eternal Lord, disintegrates the door to their magnificent meeting room.
Women and men leap to their feet, weapons are drawn, spells readied -
Toff stomps through the curtain of descending dust, bringing it with him into the room.
His staff - inlaid with gold and lanthanum, capped both sides with edged and unbreakable crystal - records his progress and faithfully reports.
To mortal eyes, he shines like gemstones and mage-light and precious metal.
To arcane sight, he glows like the Las Vegas Strip.
On second thought, countermand that mental image; to arcane sight he shows nothing at all.
At his heels follow sundry special interests - nobles and hellknights and everyone who wanted in the room before the door was locked.
Oh, it's the Headmaster of the Acadamae.
This probably isn't a combat encounter.
Lucky him.
Toff Ornelos!
It's been a year and a day, old friend. I've held this of yours in your absence, against the day again we met - catch!
The black marble bounces harmlessly off his chest.
Did you... did you seriously just try that.
There's nothing on that marble save a magic mouth. :3
How the Hell has life been treating you, chum? And how did you get in my mansion, it's only supposed to let in those I designate.
i hate you so much
I walk paths beyond your comprehension. No ward of yours can bar my entry.
Slaving wage-wizard.
Ponder this mystery as you peruse the books of Heaven and bargain for the secrets of Hell, as you tread the paths I blazed on Castrovel and the Sun...
...and perhaps one day you will understand.
I'm renting a room in the mansion, so I subleted parts of it out to everyone else who wanted inside.
It wasn't even Toff's idea, we've been doing this ever since you disappeared - so folks could visit their neighbors.
There are also scalpers doing price discovery.
Ah, Korvosa.
It's possible I should have been more precise in my designation... what is the going rate for a room in a mansion, by the way?
I'll tell you for a golden sail.
What are you doing in my city, Togomor?
Making myself useful.
What are you doing in my mansion?
Could it be that you're here, in my house, dusting my door and scuffing my floor, because you're looking to trade clones again?
It's a favorable trade - House Ornelos has a lot more money than you do.
Ah, but you see, my friend, I think it pains you worse to part with it.
The Committee Chair says you can't have wizard duels in here, or at least that you can't use AoEs.
Lord Ornelos, how do you know my man Togomor?
The Committee fucking Chair.
I studied at the Acadamae!
Although he was not enrolled.
Togomor is a snake. Believe nothing that he tells you.
Sky's blue.
Cressida Kroft grilled him under truthtelling and he seemed pretty legit, plus, Ileosa knew Togomor before he showed up.
Meanwhile, you were responsible for that entire fiasco with the Breaching Festival.
It's pretty clear that you don't like him for whatever reason (meanwhile Togomor is being perfectly friendly - look at him smile! And he even returned your lost marble!).
I think you'd say anything about him as long as it was bad.
Togomor will give a pained smile, as if to say "thank you for standing up for me" and "although I wish you didn't have to."
Aloud, he'll say something backhanded as runs to the general effect of "Toff Ornelos has much of which he can be justly proud (and much of which he can't), so don't badmouth him (he won't take it well). I'm sure he wouldn't knowingly lie (in a tone that implies we all know he totally would (because we all know he totally would (because he totally would)))".
I'm in love with the way you phrased that so Ornelos can't object without seeming ungracious.
Thanks!
Guess who doesn't give a goblin's ass about sounding ungracious.
I'll give you a hint:
It starts with "Lord" and ends with "Headmaster Toff godsdamn Ornelos, Head of House Ornelos, Heir to the Eternal Lord."
He's just about out of patience for playing nitwit games with the likes of Togomor and the interim Queen.
Do you know why he wasn't here to shut down your shitty coup earlier?
No, but I bet you're going to tell me.
It's because after hunting down the necromancer who set the shadows on Korvosa, he teleported himself to Geb in search of answers.
And answers did he find!
This tale begins in the depths of the Worldbreaker's Dead Vault...
Oh, that.
Yeah, we know.
Eh?
...How?
Tuttle and Reebs communed for answers, played twenty questions.
We know that Rovagug was responsible for the shadowplague... but tell me more about this necromancer?
Alright, cool, take the wind out of his sails, ruin Toff's cool moment.
It's not like he braved incredible peril in the land of the dead for these answers or anything.
Okay, but tell me more about this necromancer.
Some sick Shoanti fuck. Thoroughly dominated. I polymorphed him into this turtle so he'd be easier to carry around.
I knew the Shoanti set the shadows on us!
I thought Rovagug set the shadows on us?
Column A and Column B, Reebs could fill in the details.
Details, Reebs?
Pray on it.
The short of the long story is that Toff Ornelos is here now, and that means he's fixing everything that went wrong when he wasn't around to micromanage.
His understanding is that Queen Ileosa removed Field Marshall Kroft without cause (in defiance of law and tradition), appointed "Sabina Merrin" (raise your hand if present), who appointed "Corbastia Lettice" as Seneschal (in defiance of law and tradition), without soliciting the opinion of the Great Houses (in defiance of law and tradition).
Does he pretty much have the shape of that right?
Well, she had a good run.
At least next time someone tries to pull a coup this way it'll only be (apparently) illegal, and not untraditional besides.
He absolutely does not have the basic shape of it right!
A) Cressida Kroft was removed with cause - 5 in 6 Korvosans died under her watch.
B) There's nothing illegal about appointing who-the-fuck-ever as Seneschal of Castle Korvosa, even if they've typically been chosen from nobles in the Sable Company.
C) She did solicit the opinions of the Great Houses, who did not reach consensus within the period for comment (expedited, in accordance with law and tradition, due to the evolving crisis).
How the everloving fuck did you mind fogged and feebleminded idiots not reach a consensus within the period for comment.
Lord Arkona didn't show, nor anyone with right to represent him in his absence.
Where is Glorio Arkona now? Is he dead?
How should we know?
Allesain.
Dean of Divination Norval Allesain (NG female human diviner 9):
The youngest currently serving dean, Mistress [sic] Allesain rose quickly through the ranks of faculty in the Hall of Seeing, ever seeming to be in the right place at the right time for promotion.
Sir! Glorio Arkona is sailing for Veldraine.
He was twelve miles out from Korvosa at last sighting, off the shore of Barleytop Hill, and by the winds and currents I expect you could find him four further miles along his way.
...How do you know that?
I was curious.
I'll be back within five minutes.
Um, you're leaving so soon?
Briefly.
Don't you think that leaves us, uh, a little outgunned?
Ileosa might surmise how you plan to have her deposed, and feel desperate enough to order an attack while you're away.
Guardsman, go find Watch Sergeant Kroft.
That's me?
I know you're bad with names, but how'd you confuse "Altronus" and "Watch Sergeant Kroft"?
Surely the four Acadamae Deans in the room can hold down the fort without me.
Ileosa definitely wants Altronus in the room if Ornelos's faction pulls anything - she was talking to the guy behind him.
I'm on it!
Though I don't know where in the mansion she might be.
Hope I don't miss her.
Hey, what's going on in here?
Is this the Committee Room?
I tried the door earlier but it was locked - thanks to whoever left it open!
I'd better tell everyone that y'all are in here.
Salgar Irevotnin is still maintaining his silent image, so he'll replace the door with an imitation in a feeble attempt to filter out some interlopers.
I shall return.
[TOFF ORNELOS exits upstage center]
Toff Ornelos is teleporting out to get Glorio Arkona.
His motive is a mite mysterious - what does Toff have against her!? - but his ends and means straightforward:
He wants Marcus Endrin installed as Seneschal (where "Marcus Endrin" is understood to be an entire category of people - Sable Company Marines from the right families who are loyal to the noble houses of Korvosa), which he'll do either by arguing that a Marcus Endrin is the only eligible choice (bullshit!) or that she wasn't allowed to dismiss Cressida Kroft (untrue!) and that Kroft should select a Seneschal. And then someone will challenge her claim to the Crimson Throne and the Arbiters will decide against her and the Marcus Endrin will decide who has the best claim after her.
Or, if it's cleaner, maybe Ileosa Arabasti drowns while ice-skating.
It wouldn't likely help to pull out her hair in worry, so she'll belay that intervention for the time being.
What can she do about it?
First of all, stick to Kroft like glue. Cressida Kroft will follow The Process, and The Process doesn't involve any ice-skating mishaps in her future.
The Process in Korvosa is Lawful Neutral on its very best day -
It was made by and for bad people -
- and she's only one alignment step away from that.
And you shut up, Arkona, you aren't even in this scene yet.
Actually, I've never made an appearance in the entire continuity.
Somehow I'm still everyone's favorite character.
You could learn something from that, maybe.
...
But The Process is a fickle friend, because,
while "The Process" is far from perfect ("in its majestic equality, the Law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg on the streets, and steal loaves of bread"), it is also old.
Too old to love any one living mortal in particular - even where it was written to the express benefit of your class or station.
The rules apply to everyone, and will only protect you if you follow the rules.
It's all such bullshit.
Preach.
If you'd like to live where might makes right,
move to Riddleport get mugged in an alley catch the eye of fifth-circle Elias Tammerhawk and serve him as an mindthralled slave for the rest of your natural life.
I'd rather live in Korvosa where when it looks like someone might depose the Evil Queen she can count on Lawful "Good" Cressida Kroft to stop them.
Yeah, you can count on me to defend you.
If you follow the law.
Which,
is why you have,
decided to follow the law.
That is the system working as intended!
This from the woman who paid adventurers to break into my house while I was taking a bath.
But don't feel singled out, I keep a file on literally everyone who I know to have class levels or a noteworthy last name.
Which practice of mine has been vindicated time and time again - remember those Skinsaw Men?
Are you immune to poison, Arkona?
If anything, I should have been more aggressive. That way I could have caught the fiasco with the Breaching Festival before it came to a head.
I can't pretend to comprehend how you choose which potential threats to catch early.
Seems like public opinion is sour on the newest Queen - do you differ?
Not really.
It isn't impossible that she'll grow into the position - heck, maybe I've seen her grow into it a bit already - but if I'm holding out hope I'm not holding in my breath.
Yet you wait in the wings with the executioner's sword, while she entrenches herself.
Why?
She hasn't broken the law, and she's the reigning Queen.
(At least until I have a legal way to get rid of her.)
The state is its legitimacy, that's the only thing that holds this consensual illusion together.
"Consensual."
Look, I'd love to stay and chat, but someone just teleported onto my boat and I need to figure out what's up with that.
Take care.
Stick to Cressida Kroft, stay on her good side.
Ileosa does has any allies in the Vault, purchased for today; she could leave - or drop - the magnificent mansion and make the discussion more public... that's potentially a good idea, yeah, and she has some ideas for what she could say - "the Great Houses of Korvosa want to keep you down, even if your landlord's dead they think that you only deserve a tenant's life, they'll go against law and tradition and incite civil war just to spite you."
If that's her BATNA, she has something to threaten Kroft with! And anyone else with a moral compass - Lord Bromathan, maybe.
She only needs to split off one of the Great Houses, as they rule by consensus... what does she know about Lord Arkona?
That cannot possibly be true.
Okay, but what does she know about about them?
If you knew a thing, it wouldn't be secret, now would it?
What does she know that isn't secret?
The Arkonas don't really have isn't-secrets. The best I can give you are their open secrets or those secrets poorly held.
Knowledge (local) says 16.
Lay 'em on me.
I will whisper what I know of sinister House Arkona...
on the strict condition that you never so much as murmer my name in connexion to what I tell you.
Sure, whatever.
Swear to it!
I do so swear.
Palace Arkona is as black a place as its exterior of Janderhoff black marble. Treble-headed elephants, peacocks with sabers, and tigers with carven eyes graze from the walls of the palace and over the gardens beyond. This massive manor houses Old Korvosa's de facto ruling family, the inscrutable but feared House Arkona. The bizarre architectural embellishments and decorations of the palace come from distant Vudra, whose imports made House Arkona the power it is today.
A massive black-marble and wrought-iron wall surrounds the property, and guards both human and otherwise patrol the yards and ruthlessly eject trespassers.[1]
None know what takes place within those walls, although rumors abound.
Arkonas are born within, and oft as not they die within, long before their time, and are interred beneath, in private funerals unannounced.
What occurs between those first and last days must be terrible indeed, for that family's wrath and cruel appetite breeds truer than the pigment of their eyes.
The Lord Arkona (never a Lady Arkona) continues in some capacity to maintain the reputation for cruelty and coldness earned by Garath [200 years ago], while a close relative of the current lord acts as his right-hand man (or woman) and is the face of the family at gatherings of nobles.[2]
Their business is vice and murder.
Nothing occurs in the back alleys or stinking vaults of Old Korvosa without House Arkona knowing about it.
It is a poorly kept secret that the family controls or has influence over every major (and most minor) criminal enterprise in the city, from watered-down mead to murder.[3]
Rumors abound that House Arkona supports the Cerulean Society in some way, but no investigation has ever found a connection. Any link between the two remains a carefully guarded secret.[4]
-
1. pg. 28.↩
2. pg. 41.↩
3. pg. 41.↩
4. pg. 46.↩
The Arkonas were Chellish before being Chellish was cool, and she honestly respects them for that.
Ileosa's revealed preference as a big Chellish fish is to swim in shallow backwaters, and she thinks in this the Arkonas may be kindred souls.
That said - she does know how to swim with sharks, and you might think sinister House Arkona would have made a natural ally of hers in Korvosa...
But sing, bard, of Glorio Arkona, and his... unfamiliar ways.
As you say.
The current Lord Arkona breaks somewhat from the tradition of his forebears.[1]
, attempts at every opportunity to lift up the poor and provide them with enough sustenance to survive. To that end, he has leveled several buildings the family owns to make room for massive low-rent tenement apartments. These actions have made Glorio the most popular nobleman among the city's many poor and destitute and has caused no end of anxiousness and worry from his family members.[2]
He frequently walks through Old Korvosa (surrounded by bodyguards both seen and unseen, of course), handing out candies to the dirty children and silver pieces to their despondent parents. Glorio publicly demonstrates affection for his cousin and second-in-command, Melyia -
- Ugh, Melyia.
- whose unearthly beauty counters her lord's rather average appearance.
Scandalous rumors abound as to the nature of their relationship, but rather than crush such rumors and make their whisperers disapear, Glorio seems to revel in the attention they create. Wherever he and Melyia go, eyes follow - even when those eyes belong to the equally beautiful and -
Equally!?
Who the fuck do you think that you're calling equals!?
jealous queen of Korvosa herself.
I'm not jealous, I'm disdainful!
Asmodeus, if you can grant me one thing, let it be the chance to slice off her nose.
Everyone in Westcrown said my beauty was beyond compare.
But in Korvosa you can't shake a stick without hitting someone they're comparing to me.
I don't want to sound petty, it's just...
One of those little things that grind you down, you know?
Can I please finish what I was saying.
Yeah, go ahead.
Lord Glorio Arkona's surprising arrival on the political scene in 4704 heralded a new and unexpected direction for the family. Long tolerated in the higher circles, House Arkona has become suddenly a force to be reckoned with not only on, under, and above the streets, but also in the royal court and posh sitting rooms of the nobility.
Regardless of Glorio's future successes, House Arkona shall not soon forget the legitimacy he has brought to his secretive and sinister family.[3]
1. pg 60.↩
2. pg. 41.↩
3. pg 60.↩
Glorio Arkona is a literal mob boss.
He's pretending at something in addition to that, but he hasn't exactly relinquished the criminal empire... if he's the standup standing up for the little guy that he appears - or if he's devoted enough to appearances -, she can maybe buy him off by pointing out the chaos that would follow if he joined Toff in trying to get rid of her.
If he's not, maybe she can buy him off with money.
...This feels winnable. Not won, but winnable.
There's some tentative optimism: it's looking entirely possible that Toff leapt here before looking.
(Gods, what is even Toff's problem???)
Why are we wasting our time on intrigue that the GM's going to roll back?
Ileosa could have asked that same question, but apropos instead Lord Ornelos.
...I'm not sure who we ought to throw in with.
On the one hand, the Queen is pages 64-65 of Ultimate Campaign folded like origami and dressed like a human being, and she tried to purge the Field Marshall. On the other hand, she mostly failed to purge the Field Marshall and what I've heard from our Wizard regarding her Acadamae doesn't incline me towards its head honcho.
And on the third hand, Ileosa is scrunkly and charming,
Not that this isn't fascinating - but not that it is -
what's our plan for the shadows? Seems like we should have one.
It seems like the problem is that each of the shadows is individually powerful, and we have no way to track them all down, and also there are thousands of them, and also even if we somehow killed them all we'd just be hit by a different wave from a different outbreak.
I see three possibilities here:
1) There isn't a solution and the Gamemaster wants us to realize that, and then we'll do small excursions in a doomed world.
2) There's a particular solution that the Gamemaster has in mind, but they want to see if we can come up with it, and also impress the difficulty of the problem so that we're suitably impressed by their plan.
3) The Gamemaster doesn't already have a plan for the shadows but wants to give us the chance to find one if there is one, just in case.
My money's on number 1; we're only level 3 right now and it'd be a weird campaign if high level wizards fixed the inciting incident without us playing any major role.
Kendall, what are you babbling about?
I - I don't know.
Why did you say that all in Kendall's voice?
The turtle's getting away.
I thought it'd be funny.
Kendall wanted to throw in with the Rough Beast and now he's gone stark raving mad.
Well, actually, now I'm thinking... obviously we can't team up with a god that wants to eat Creation, that's kind of self-defeating for us as part of Creation.
But shadows only want to eat people, and there are a lot of people out there, many of whom have nothing to do with us. And more are made every day!
We should negotiate with the shadows; they were once Korvosans, surely they remember how to wheel and deal.
Suggesting we feed people to the undead is exactly what a secret cleric of Urgathoa would say.
How do we know no one here is a secret cleric, listening to our plans and reporting back to the shadows?
If he's the secret Urgathoa cultist we need to negotiate with him so the shadows go away!
(we can always assassinate him later, but we can't be saying that where he can hear)
I'll leave first so you can't murder me and then command the shadows to stop once I'm safely in my secret private sanctum.
That's absurd! Ten thousand gp, and I'll go no lower.
You have ten thousand golden sails on hand?
And two scrolls of teleport?
The turtle is crawling away.
It'd come out of the treasury, obviously.
I'm the cultist!
No, I am!
Pharasma!
I spit on the lady on the Lady of Graves.
We've done no wrong, and Pharasma deserves to watch Her own daughters devoured by esurient night.
If there's actual reason for concern that someone in this room is a cultist of the Pallid Princess or Rough Beast, there is such a spell as Abadar's truthtelling.
It may prove productive to cast.
That's the same logic that Asmodeans use to justify His tyranny.
That must be why he suggested we use it!
They're wrong about Asmoedeus's primacy, they aren't wrong that the person who created mankind has every right to - that the creator of the universe deserves deference and respect!
The turtle's escaping.
I've asked Asmodeus of my own self whether He - and His dead Twin Ihys - were First among the gods. And They were.
If others tell another story, they tell it no more truthfully.
It's Pharasma's system that sends the souls of sinners to Hell and the Abyss.
She's more guilty of the night's true horror than even are the Rough Beast and Pallid Princess.
If I can beat truthtelling I'm sure Asmodeus can prevaricate by commune.
...But I'll keep that observation to myself.
I mean, how could any of us really be sure we're not behind this.
You know, it's kind of strange how many people in Korvosa's leadership are attractive women.
I mean, while only Ileosa gets the whole
"Queen Ileosa was a woman of breathtaking beauty, with red hair like the sunset, chaste alabaster skin, and features so fetching many claimed her mother must have been a nymph queen, as surely no mortal woman could give birth to a beauty such as she."
treatment, basically everyone who rates an entire adjective gets one what says they're pretty.
Lady Leroung is "lovely," Field Marshall Merrin's "a gothic beauty," the Seneschall is "ethereal" "has large wide-open eyes" and "was cleaned up nicely", the Vault Colonel -
Ahahayeah, what a wacky coincidence that the best person for that job had eyes that shine like wish-grade diamonds and perfection written on every line and curve of her body.
How wackily coincidential this all is.
Let's change the topic.
The! Turtle! Is! Crawling! Away!
Sorry, the turtle that used to be the Shoanti necromancer who set the progenitor shadow on Korvosa?
That turtle?
Toff left behind the turtle?
Wait, okay, but Queen Ileosa's dubious hiring practices can't have had anything to do with the head of House Leroung or ex-Field Marshall Cressida Kroft.
Kill it!!
Take him down, hard and fast!
Use nonlethal damage! But you have the general idea right.
...I'm sorry, what? You think that Cressida Kroft is hot.
Cressida Kroft.
...Yes? She's described as, paraphrasing, "a harried and tired-looking, attractive, dark-haired human woman dressed in red armor." [Edge of Anarchy pg. 26]
Described by who.
That... that does not look like nonlethal damage, guys.
That's just how she's described.
By who?!
I don't know.
Everyone, I guess.
Can I get a healing spell for this turtle?
Healing spell for the turtle!
(Well, a Channel Energy, actually.)
WTF, folks? I'm sure you didn't need your +4's to hit in order to incapacitate a Tiny animal with 6 Dex.
What in Abadar's name are you on about?
This is for revenge.
Oh.
If that's the case, I'm afraid I really must interpose myself.
It's against the tenets of my faith to let an unarmed turtle die, it's why we all use metal straws.
Do you think you can stop us?
This is worse than when I found out that people like eating cottage cheese.
Do you think she's hotter than me?
Eh?
Draw steel, coward!
Sweet Hell. You do, don't you.
What's your Armor Class, Barry?
What? Why does that matter?
Level 4's close enough to taste.
I hide under the table. 28 for Stealth.
It matters if there are people in my city who think Cressida Kroft is hotter than me!
Cressida Kroft!
....Why did my bodyguard disappear?
Your bodyguard has Sneak Attack and hits five times a round.
There are Hellknights here, sneak-thief, with Full Plate and Hit Dice.
There are Wizards here. Some of them think you shouldn't touch Toff's turtle until he gets back.
This doesn't need to be a fight.
You just don't want us to kill you.
I will admit that that's a part of it.
Do our backup characters keep the EXP we earn, or do I need the full 4,000 and level 4?
Gentlemen!
!
You can't fight in here, this is the war room.
EARLIER
Kroft will head back to the meeting room to fetch Zenobia and the rest of the party. When she gets there, she intends to say that she intends to spend Korvosa's more-or-less last commune on something, and ask if anyone else has things they'd like asked for if Zenobia winds up with spare questions.
With that intention firmly in mind, Cressida Kroft opens the door...
Someone replaced the door with a silent image of a door.
- huh.
Someone... replaced the door with a silent image of a door.
She's not sure what it's a bad sign of, but that seems like a bad sign.
"Someone replaced the door with a silent image of a door."
Huh.
She's not sure what that's a bad sign of, but it seems like a bad sign.
"Holler if it's safe for squishies."
Blessing of the Faithful (Su) on Cressida Kroft.
If she doesn't need a hand to work the handle, let's Quick Draw a Quick Draw Shield and -
- see what's on the other side.
Gentlemen!
You can't fight in here, this is the war room.
That's the bastard who set the shadows on us! An Archbishop of the Rough Beast!
...That's a turtle.
She looks about for a symbol of insanity.
And! Stops! Looking around for a. Symbol of insanity??!!
It's obviously not a symbol of insanity, insanity works like confusion which doesn't do this, but, wow.
What a way to remind herself that she's survived this long against the foes she's faced through nothing as much as pure dumb luck.
Are you shouting that I can enter?
Not yet, no.
Guardsman Mull, report.
They're trying to kill the turtle, who's a cleric of Rovagug - who's allegedly a cleric of Rovagug, according to Toff Ornelos, I'm not saying he's not but no one's let him get a word out -
The most relevant part of that is -
"Toff Ornelos? Is he back in Korvosa?"
That's probably fantastic news. She trusts Lord Ornelos about as far as she can throw him, but that's somewhat further than she could throw Togomor.
Why are you defending Rovagug's priest?
...
Look at her!
Just look at her!
I am a very good judge of this sort of thing, and I am telling you, sure as the world is round, that
Allegedly Rovagug's priest.
Cressida
Please don't just throw around His Name. Why are you just throwing around the Name?
Kroft.
Because they're in cahoots. Either Cayden Cailean and the Rough Beast, or the supposed Pope isn't of Cayden Cailean at all.
Is.
Police! Arrest the cultist!
Not.
But I am the police! Am I supposed to arrest myself?
Hot.
???
How old are you, twelve?
Nineteen!
Police officers arresting other police officers because it turns out that they're evil cultists is something we have a procedure for.
"Mull isn't a cultist," she says, because that's something she can think of to say which is both true and applicable.
You don't act half it.
I'm in my eighties. You're like a little kid to me; no, I don't think you're "hot."
If the Lucky Drunk is against us, should we be more circumspect about His name too, to avoid His notice?
He's right to be against us. Cayden and Milani will scour this world of sinful life!
Kroft is like a billion years old! You're like a little kid to her!
Wait, is that true?
Can I attempt an untrained knowledge check against DC 10 to identify a humanoid (human)?
That's just a silly superstition. Uh, the thing about the Names, not about the Field Marshall -
I am human.
And. Thirty-four.
We're better than those Shoanti savages. The turtle should be tried Lawfully for his crimes, and executed as a human, publicly where all can see!
And after the turtle, Ileosa!
EH? On what charges?
Kroft starts taking age penalties on her next birthday. -1 Strength, Con, Dex. If we have to rematch her it'll be before then, I bet.
Or.
She's going to become undead.
Kroft, you weren't here for this, but several of the people in this room admitted to worshiping the Pallid Princess and feeding information to the shadows.
Several people did what?
Murdering your husband and seizing power, you diabolic whore.
My money's on, uh, graveknight. She's got that red armor - she's not wearing it right now, but, she's got it, and it's really distinctive armor. Oh, and graveknights can bind weaker undead to their service, so she could have a bunch of shadow minions, which is, like, thematic.
How much money? That's a really specific scenario.
Cool your heels, people.
How dare you say that!
I loved Eodred!
If Cressida Kroft becomes a non-shadow undead, 50-50 chance it's a graveknight.
Hmm. No bet.
Love at first sight, I'm sure. Lucky you to have met such a lovable man of such high station so promptly on stepping off the boat.
Eighty-seven, divide by two, add seven...
Fifty-point-five.
This is blatant lèse-majesté. Is it even legal?
If the Lucky Drunk is with the opposition, I want a more ominous appellation to use for him.
"The Lucky Drunk" makes Him sound friendly, which would logically make us the baddies.
Eh, whatever. Do you want to go get drinks some time?
Maybe I'll CONSIDER it LATER if the PLANET SURVIVES.
I am LOSING my MIND over here.
We could call him the Angry Drunk.
What even happened in here?
And where is Toff Ornelos?
To answer your question, Field Marshall Sabina Merrin:
Were he to call for the abolition of the monarchy outright, that would be treason and a capital crime.
But no law prohibits accusing a sitting Queen of a criminal offense, nor does any on the books prohibit proposing punishments for the case in which the accused is found guilty.
Neither still is defamation a crime - it is a matter for civil courts, and not for Hellknights.
That is, if she believes, as I do not, that this accusation of murder was negligently or knowingly false.
However.
By my reading of the 178th Ammendment to the Charter of Korvosa, you could have him whipped for calling her a whore.
Would you like for me to handle that for you?
I thought you were on our side!
I am.
And I enforce discipline.
Hmm, it's tempting.
But maybe a bad look.
Togomor, is there a room in the mansion we can use as a holding cell? I'll decide what to do with him later.
Maralictor - Briasus.
What sides are you talking about? Where's Toff, what'd he do?
You don't have the RIGHT!
Lord Ornelos is retrieving an Arkona, to assemble the Peerage Review.
He aims to have you reinstated as Field Marshall, and the successor to Kalepopolis selected to your choice.
She totally does have the right, moron.
Be glad it's not worse!
That's the problem with Hellknights - or - one of the many problems with Hellknights. They never ask before they go all Judge Dredd on whatever fragile thing the Guard managed to set up.
She has - had - three Liason Officers in Citadel Vraid and no one ever told them shit.
You'll have to arrest me too!
Okay.
Don't think that I'll come quietly.
You'll take and keep your hands off the hilt of that sword if you know what's good for you.
If you draw steel here that is a hanging offense.
And they'll try you for it posthumously.
If this comes to blows, we're on his side.
And we're against.
I see, I see.
But which side are you on, of the battle map?
EVERYONE! STAND! DOWN!
The world is ending, where are your priorities?
He knows that voice.
Toff sprints past the silent image - hair wild, eyes wild, flowing beard in disarray -
Lord Ornelos! You won't believe how happy I am to see -
I PREPARED MAGE'S MAGNIFICENT MANSION ON YOUR REQUEST, CRESSIDA KROFT.
...
ON YOUR REQUEST.
...I'm sorry?
Thank you.
That's all that he wanted.
In file behind Toff Ornelos, four armed guards enter the room.
(It's getting pretty crowded in there!)
Knowledge (local) or (nobility) will identify a handful of them as fairly notable in their own right. They shout and shove for peons to make way - to make way for Lord Glorio Arkona!
There's standing room only, I hope he won't mind.
You can tell your grandchildren of the glorious day that goons from House Arkona graciously grabbed your chair and gallantly flung you forth from of it.
Enter Lord Arkona.
There's... exactly one empty chair, apparently.
He pulls it out and offers it to his cousin with a smile.
Melyia Arkona will regally flounce into the offered chair.
Glorio Arkona will climb on the table and sit cross-legged.
To a discerning eye - and the greatest pupil of Vencarlo Orisini has a discerning eye from its white to its iris - it's obvious from their casual movements and resting posture, even from the movement of their eyes, that Glorio and his cousin Melyia are deadly fighters.
It's not something you can fake, and it's very hard to conceal.
She couldn't put a number on it, but -
Glorio Arkona has at least 6 BAB.
Melyia has thirteen.
(They scare her.)
What a dress, Melyia!
There are so very few who could pull it off.
Your tiara is beautiful, Ileosa.
It makes you look just like a princess.
Are... are we about to witness a murder?
Murder's a watched pot of water as refuses to boil.
Perhaps relatedly -
A maulding magic man made me aware that our old Stirge King tripped on a loose flagstone - and that he never stood up from it.
It's halfway Eodred's own damn fault, for leaving the roads in such disrepair, but the other half -
Give me the details, girl!
I die of things vicariously!
I didn't kill Eodred!
...That is so, so tempting to jump on.
It takes every ounce of his formidable restraint not to -
He'd throw his arms wide and announce, like a circus conductor to his trained howler monkeys, "Hear that, folks? She didn't kill Eodred!"
Or with a dark and triumphant smile, like she'd stepped into his trap, lean forward and grimly say, "I never said you did."
It's not even that he wants to publicly humiliate her - would gain anything from it - although he would find it fun - it's just... who leaves themself wide open like that? And expects him not to take a swing?
But... Toff gave him the strong impression across thirty seconds of strongarming that everyone knew Ileosa killed Eodred and that she was all but confessing to it.
Which just ain't so.
So he won't burn bridges with the Queen just because it would be funny.
He misses his moment. Others make similar jabs, but none with 22 Charisma sitting lotus-style at the center of attention.
Ileosa will be fiiiiiine.
Glorio raises his hand to silence them. In a voice of warm support and gentle amusement, "Order, now, order, people, let's have some class."
"Formidable restraint"?
The Glorio she knows throws screaming tantrums over trifling things.
Hits things, breaks people.
Like a small child.
My Strength is 18, Ornelos's 9, but we'd be equally quick in our respective Heavy Loads.
Unlike the wizard as brought us here, I seldom rage in public.
And it must be that I have restraint in spades; no one else can hold my dark moods back!
Voice shaking with anger, Ileosa will repeat that Eodred tripped. He fell behind and couldn't be saved.
He wasn't the only one. Almost everyone she lived with died one after another last night and it was terrifying and horrible and she will give the gory details and there are witnesses and she'll accept a truthspell and there were too many witnesses for it to be remotely possible they could all get past truthspells.
Bullshit. You were giddy when we saw you in the Vault last night. Your minions were unsurprised and ready to take over.
I was glad to be alive!
The Peerage Review is assembled. This will be the... the what?
461st.
...I wasn't asking you, why do you even know that?
This will be the 461st advisory meeting of the Peerage Review since the establishment of blah blah blah. In attendance are all the people who are in attendance.
Let's get this done quickly.
It is the considered opinion of House Ornelos that Cressida Kroft was removed without just cause as Field Marshal of the Korvosan Guard, in defiance of whichever the fuck rule that's in defiance of.
Will you say under truthspell that you never wanted Eodred dead? Had no designs upon his life?
How do we know that these are the real Arkonas, here of their own free will?
Rather than, say, cultists impersonating them.
Cultists causing you a lot of trouble down here?
You don't know the half of it.
Nor indeed the other half!
Most relevant is Act 4438-131, also known as the Marsh Giant Act of 4438. Section 22, page 825.
Hey, Toff, is this your turtle?
That is my turtle, thank you, Salgar.
You there, give me your seat, I'm a senior citizen.
Is there any married woman who's never wished her husband dead?
YES!
It is the recommendation of House Ornelos that Cressida Kroft be immediately restored to her former position, former titles, returned the keys to Citadel Volshyenek, made financial restitution, etcetera, etcetera.
Whoever's taking minutes can fill in the finicky details.
I didn't want Eodred dead, never entertained the idea of killing him, and I wish he were still alive!
Will you swear to that under truthspell?
...................shit.
shit shit shit
The former Field Marshal remains removed without just cause.
House Ornelos can see no recourse save we escalate this to the Arbiters. As it is a matter of state, an Arbiter will be selected to hear the case at random, in accordance with -
Article 3 of the City Charter!
I know that one.
I'm sorry, Lord Ornelos.
I get eager.
shit shit shit shit shit
It just slipped out. She didn't - they were all yelling at her and it just slipped out.
We don't even need the cultists, we infight fine without them, but we've got so many anyway.
I've been sailing a dry tub since midnight last night and got like thirty seconds of explanation from Toff Ornelos.
Someone needs to fill me in on the details.
Korvosa, shadows, Vault, dungeon, animated statue, brawl, Field Marshall, Watch Sergeant, Queen, deputized, bodyguards, communes, end of the world, Rovagug's fault, Reebs, State of the Union, magnificent mansions, baronetcies, Knights of the Vault, committee, idiocy, unworkable plans, end of the world, abandoned by god and Cressida Kroft, more idiocy, Toff Ornelos, turtle, standoff, Return of the Kroft, Toff Ornelos: Electric Boogaloo, local man sits on table.
Did I leave anything out?
Nothing important.
Bluff check to hide mortal terror... d20 says nine. Modifiers say 23.
...The Shaken condition inflicts a -2, so, 21.
21's not so bad?
The Sense Motive modifiers assembled in this room range from -3 to +28.
Shit.
You left out all the verbs, my man.
Verbs: filler.
Okay, but you can imagine that I gave a more comprehensive recap, right?
🤔 I'll give that a try.
I randomly select Arbiter Zenderholm to hear the case, since she's right there.
...No, that's not allowed, Toff. There is a procedure.
Wait, what's going on over here? Distract me from the lies I told.
Arbiter Zenderholm is hearing the case to reinstate Field Marshal Kroft.
There is a procedure.
Baronetcies?
End of the world?
How many Arbiters do we even have in the Vault? Two? The other Arbiters are dead or MIA, so, flip a coin I guess to see if we need to track down Arbiter Brawm?
A-ha!
I appoint Togomor as an Arbiter!
And Sabina and
Arbiters must be confirmed!!
I think Ileosa should repeat, under truthspell, that she married Eodred for love, did not want him dead, did not plot his death, did not arrange his death, and wishes that he were alive.
There aren't enough Arbiters left to form a quorum -
I am positive that it doesn't work that way and if it does it shouldn't -
And I had every cause to remove Cressida Kroft, surely people have been dismissed for presiding over smaller disasters! And if she were reinstated it wouldn't change who the Seneschal is! And
Convince the Arbiter.
Togomor, you believe me, right?
Ileosa Arabasti!
You are incandescently guilty of something, I'll try different tacks until one of them sticks!
Before the hour is out I will see to it that Korvosa is running as it should.
We may as well parallelize - Maralictor, you seem knowledgeable. I want to reopen the "expedited" period for comment on the appointment of Sabina Merrin, what's my legal justification.
I've never seen it read this way, but you could argue As it says clearly in 4611-20 (the Earthquake Recovery Appropriations Act of 4611) -
You can't just cherrypick rules that advantage you and - and let all the others rest!
Come on now.
We appreciate you, Kroft, but I don't think we need to be quite so Abadaran as all that!
In a perfect world, every word of every regulation ever written by anyone anywhere would be enforced with fanatic fervor by an army of semi-recognized quasi-vigilantes.
Alas, everyone pays more attention to laws and arguments which advantage them.
It's why we need such adversarial justice.
Baronetcies?
End of the world?
Baronetcies for the survivors of the attack.
And land reform! She'll be a popular queen.
No she isn't!
I said she'll be.
And land reform. Well, well, well.
He heard of that in passing; it'll be unpopular to roll back.
They really need this Wescrani child off the throne as quickly as can be done.
But what is this that I hear about the end of the world?
In a matter of days, most everyone in Varisia will be dead and the survivors will have no way to plant come spring.
Abadar says that fifty other cities were struck last night besides Korvosa and Westcrown - Westcrown fell, by the by, with hundreds of thousands dead - and that the casualties of last night won't look like an outlier a month from now, and Asmodeus claims that a coalition of gods are responsible including the Rough Beast, Midnight Lord, and Everbloom.
We don't know what to do.
Many of Geb believe the age of men over. Regardless of Geb's official policy, they claim, Osirion and Taldor will doubtless fall at the hands of impatient vectors. They expect Lastwall to be taken this very night, by surprise and storm; Lastwall has many enemies in Ustalav, newly capable.
Tar-Baphon will return.
There is talk of a new Worldwound Alliance, with the Whispering Way, and there is talk of letting that threat fester, that Outside powers might step in.
There's a lot to get done while the day's yet young!
It's why he's trying to get this part over with.
Glorio will have to work his jaw a minute before he can form any words.
Outside powers, pfft.
If the gods could close the Worldwound, they'd have done so already. They aren't as powerful as y - as we mortals like to think.
I think They must be pretty powerful, seeing as a couple of deities are right now in the middle of ending all life.
Cressida's confusion is - what did the gods do, that changed the game so completely? Her second confusion is how the Team Shadow coalition is able to afford this, afford - her understanding was previously that divine intervention is rare because deities can cheaply veto expensive interventions, unilaterally or nearly unilaterally. Otherwise they'd have already closed the Wound, right?
Or - the handful of gods and demon lords in favor of yellow fever must be wildly outnumbered by the ones who aren't, but we still have yellow fever. If the Pallid Princess - acting more or less alone - can't preserve the status quo even against the combined powers of Nirvana, Heaven, Axis, and Hell(?), Kroft must admit she doesn't understand why pox and ague still exist.
Oh!
Did you know that ague is caused by mosquitos and we could eliminate them with something called a gene drive?
Wolves, too, and gob -
uh -
...only mosquitos and wolves, though.
Is something I read.
In a book.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Unrelatedly, I need like four more Rings of Mind Shielding.
Can we buy those through your Bag, Zey?
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
If you tell me who all to cast it on, I can do communal nondetection as a stopgap!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
The Peerage Review will now consider Sabina Merrin for Field Marshal.
The considered opinion of House Ornelos is 'no, of course not, because that would be unfathomably stupid.'
And besides, she'll be too busy with her new job as an Arbiter -
Gods of the Pit, Lord Ornelos, what is your problem with me??
What did I ever do to you??
We've barely spoken!
You could have, I don't know, brought me a fruit basket and asked me to subsidize repairs on the Acadamae!
The world is ending and this is how you spend your time?
Why?
Because you are the absolute worst kind of person, and Korvosa is my city.
The - the absolute worst?
Really?
Those are harsh words for someone within an alignment step of you - if not the same alignment!
Pharasma judges mortal souls based on the axes of Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos, but while he acknowledge Her Judgement, it is not Toff's native schema.
He strongly feels that it fails to capture the most important virtues and vices.
If it were His place to Judge mortal souls, He would judge them:
benign
helpless | intelligent
witless -------------|----------------- capable
stupid | bandit
dangerous
One's class as Helpless, Intelligent, Bandit, or Stupid, he finds, has fairly little correlation with one's Pharasma-judged Alignment; nor one's Cunning or Wisdom as measured by detect thoughts and anxieties; nor with one's temperament as a Phlegmatic, Sanguine, Choleric, or Melancholic; nor any other way in which people differ.
Nonetheless, it is in his opinion the most important trait or characteristic of any thinking thing.
The Helpless are those who benefit others at their own expense. The Church of Sarenrae is archetypally Helpless. Most diabolists are Helpless. His students which are not Stupid are largely Helpless. Cressida Kroft leans Helpless.
The Intelligent benefit from and benefit others. Their gain is another's gain. The Church of Abadar strives to be Intelligent, although most Abadarans fail to attain it. Cressida Kroft is Intelligent. Ornher Reebs leans Intelligent. Most people, however, are not Intelligent.
The Bandit benefit at others' expense. The archetypal bandit is someone unscrupulous with an Evil alignment. Bandit is the second best quadrant to be in and the third best quadrant to work with. Some rare Lawful Evils are Bandit to the Helpless and Intelligent to the Intelligent, which is why Toff works with devils and no other fiends.
The Stupid cost others to their own detriment. The great majority of people are Stupid. Evil aims at Banditry and attains Stupidity. Good aims at Helplessness and attains Stupidity. Iomedae is the LG goddess of Banditry, but most of Her followers are Helpless or Stupid or both. Toff Ornelos cannot make an inclusive list of Stupid people, because the First Law of Stupidity reads "Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation"[1], but it's safe to say that if you don't know for sure your quadrant it's probably that you're Stupid.
-
1. The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity, Carlo M. Cipola[2] ↩
2. From whom I lifted this sorting scheme entire. ↩
Queen Domina was Intelligent. You can work with the Intelligent.
Her son Eodred a Bandit. You can work with Bandits.
You can't work with Stupids. Not if you want to, not if they want to.
That's what makes them Stupid.
If Toff Ornelos were made the Judge of mortal souls, he'd send the Intelligent to Axis, the Helpless to Nirvana, the Bandit to Elysium, and the Stupid all to Hell.
What did I do that convinced you I couldn't be dealt with?
Do... do I have to make a list??
You demoted the most benign and capable person in Korvosa when you could least afford to lose her, appropriated properties to appease peasants a better Queen wouldn't have ruffled and could soothe with words, invited Togomor into your home,
This is my house.
and tried, in panic, to appoint him as an Arbiter of Korvosa.
And that's just what I've found out about so far!
But you can be dealt with, Ileosa, and I am currently dealing with you.
In a low and dangerous voice, Glorio Arkona asks why the first words out of Toff Ornelos's mouth when he teleported onto the deck of the Reprieve II weren't "by the way, Glor, the world is ending."
It seems more fucking important than his beef with the Queen.
And among other things, Glorio would have liked to tell the others on his boat.
I am busy, because unlike you I can actually do something about the world's greater problems, and I saw no need to lecture you at length.
It frankly wasn't worth my time to fill you in on the details, since the only thing I really need from you is the Wescrani removed.
Once I've undone everything that happened in Korvosa without me, I can move forward unhobbled -
Glorio Arkona rises from his lotus position in one violent motion,
- as if he teleported upright -
- he's more dangerous than Melyia -
And kicks seated Lord Ornelos in the head.
Hey, listen to this!
Isn't that one of the most Cayden Cailean songs you've ever heard? But, like, Starfinder Cayden Cailean.
What does that have to do with anything?
It doesn't.
I just thought it was interesting, okay?
Everyone roll initiative!
Dean of Divination, Master Norva Allesain: 1d20+9 = 23
Forewarned (Su): You can always act in the surprise round even if you fail to make a Perception roll to notice a foe, but you are still considered flat-footed until you take an action.
One hitched breath before Lord Arkona stands, Norva Allesain turns herself invisible.
Melyia Arkona: 1d20+11 = 28
...It'd be inconvenient for her on several levels for Glorio Arkona to die at this moment.
With an 80 foot land speed and +20 to Acrobatics, it's a move action to slip from her chair and take position by the wizard.
Before it's really registered with anyone else in the room that a fight has broken out, before toppling Toff has finished falling backwards in his chair, Melyia has readied an action to interrupt any spell that he casts with one Stunning Fist.
(Or, as case may be, a Stunning Head Stomp.)
Aram Zey: 1d20+7 = 24
Not his circus, not his monkeys.
Greater invisibility.
Dean of Evocation, Salgar Irevotnin: 1d20+8 = 23
If he's 3 DEX less spry than he was as a youth, the Dean of Evocation still acts with astonishing alacrity.
It's best for all involved that he ends this fight before it really starts, immediately and overwhelmingly with a fourth-circle resilient sphere (DC 23).
Salgar's done this many times before, in a classroom setting.
He casts it at CL 6, of course; there's no reason to reward a troublemaker with more headroom than they deserve.
The d20 says 3, +21 for Reflex makes 24.
Oh dear.
I find that a shimmering empty forcesphere on the table really brings a room together.
Sabina Merrin: 1d20+5 = 23
From the moment that Lord Arkona rose to his feet she knew that this would be a disaster.
Excitement and consternation spreads through the room at the speed of perception and she just knows that this is all going to go south.
Sabina moves up to Ileosa, firmly grips her (flat-footed) Queen's arm and,
You can attempt to drag a foe as a standard action. You can only drag an opponent who is no more than one size category larger than you. The aim of this maneuver is to drag a foe in a straight line behind you without doing any harm. [...]
If your attack is successful, both you and your target are moved 5 feet back, with your opponent occupying your original space and you in the space behind that in a straight line. For every 5 by which your attack exceeds your opponent's CMD, you can drag the target back an additional 5 feet.
hauls her out of the chair and up to fifteen feet away into the defensible corner of the room.
If Ileosa would be so kind as to position herself between Sabina and the wall whenever the initiative order finally reaches her, that would be useful.
Are... are we enemies now, Sabina?
But that's so sad.
Not to my knowledge...?
It says that you can drag a "foe". An "opponent."
Ileosa, if you fight me on this we really will be foes.
And then the maneuver will work and we'll have nothing to fight about!
Spellmaster Maganrad Hestrigsen: 1d20+7 = 21
It's nice when prudence and duty point in the same direction.
Maganrad Hestrigsen is a Spellmaster of the Korvosan Guard, which means he should break up this fight that just began.
Hestrigsen is also one of Toff Ornelos's students - or was yesterday when Toff Ornelos had a school - and that's supposed to be a binding commitment.
It's good to be on good terms with Headmaster Toff Ornelos, which he can in this case do by casting the 5th-circle Enchantment spell that as a 5th-circle Enchanter he has prepared.
Dominate person on Lord Glorio Arkona, DC 20.
I must have saved or something.
Sidebar: I've added you and Toff's other wizard to the list of people I hate.
Poop.
Arkona Goons: 1d20+9 = 20
Not all Arkona Goons are personally loyal to the current Head of House; the internal politics are pretty cutthroat.
The four which Glorio took with him by teleport, though?
Most certainly are.
Fair warning to wizards: if someone were try casting spells on the don, massed magic missile may foil their concentration.
(Or kill them outright, most d6-hitdie casters aren't swimming in hitpoints. Including Toff Ornelos, who, if meatier than most, recently took 20-odd points of Sneak Attack damage.)
Korvosan Group Red Group Initiative: 1d20+0 = 20
Group Red mostly consist of people who followed Toff Ornelos into the mansion.
They came here today hoping for a fight.
They've already danced the monkey dance of trading words, feeling each other out, getting up in people's space, working up the courage, working up the anger.
(The anger is important, and you need to work up enough to go around. Making sure you've gotten the other side angry is the difference between picking a fight, and attacking someone.)
They've danced the monkey dance twice.
They are spoiling for a fight.
Positively itching for a fight.
And now - what joy! how dare! such egosyntonic anger! - there is a fight.
Glorio Arkona is... terrifying, actually, but one member of Group Red is nearby and going to try and pull him down off the table anyway.
My CMD is basically "Yes," and as for my bonus to hit - Attack of Opportunity says 1d20+25 = 26.
but a natural one, alas, always misses.
Oh! Let me go grab the Critical Fumble Deck!
NOO!!
Okay, okay.
(Spoilsports.)
Another of Group Red is near enough and brave enough to tackle Lord Arkona, especially considering that he's already distracted - and this one rolled 18 on the twenty-sided die! Plus two or three or something.
Combat Maneuver Defense is the answer to life, the universe, and everything.
Not Combat Maneuver Defense in general, I mean mine in particular (which is 42).
Well, Combat Maneuver Defense, and also Combat Reflexes. 1d20+25... = 27?
So far this fight I've rolled a 1, a 2 and a 3, you can't make this up.
Twenty-seven will hit.
Take 1d4+4 = 8 nonlethal damage from an unarmed strike.
I've rolled one, two, three, and four.
Even maximum damage won't OH-KO him, since he's a (flips a coin and rolls a die) second level warrior.
(And far from the nastiest unnamed Korvosan in Group Red, although neither is he the weakest.)
If Glorio has a +4 Strength modifier and +25 to hit... no, that'd make no sense, he'd need 21 BAB.
He swings with Dex and is probably getting a damage bonus somewhere.
All of that would have happened behind the GM screen, you don't know about it.
Fair enough.
As for the rest of Group Red:
One grabs a magnificent potted fern and flings it at the fleeing Whore-Queen of Korvosa, because when's the next time he'll get the chance and someone who's running away can't hit you back.
One gets in the Caydenite's turtle-loving face with a sword drawn and an action readied and asks him if he wants to finish what they began in the hopes that the other guy will start it.
...Does that mean that if I don't attack him he'll have wasted his turn?
He's insulting you and your god and he keeps jerking his whole arm like he's going to slash you.
It's intense, and everything in you screams to fold else fight back.
19 WIS goes brrrrrrrrrr
On my turn I'll do whatever makes the most sense for my character.
Quietly, two from Group Red walk out the door, because. Spells are being cast.
They had the same cowardly idea at the same time and one of them is going to have to step to the side for the other one to leave first and they meet eyes and both of them are mortified but hey. It's our little secret.
The last of Group Red delays initiative.
Lyvina: 1d20-2 = 18
Wizard Spells Prepared (CL 2nd, concentration +7)
1st - color spray (DC 16), grease (DC 17), mount, summon minor monster, open slot
cantrips - acid splash, detect magic, message, prestidigitation
Cleric Spells Prepared (CL 1st, concentration +6)
1st - magic weapon (x2), protection from evil (already cast), open slot
orisons - guidance, virtue, stabilize
As a wizard she's supposed to delight in having rolled 20 for initiative, but.
It's not clear right now who the threats are, or even who is on which side, or which side it is she's on, or where her allies are -
Under the table.
- she could put a grease in front of Queen Ileosa but people would walk around it and she could ready an action to cast grease to catch people when they're charging if they're charging but if no one does that or if someone pathetically low level does it she wasted her whole turn and her spell and then she doesn't have it later to help Altronus get Sneak Attacks or cover a retreat although she does have mount and summon monster for those because she can cast them with standard actions thanks to her Acadamae education, hm, the play is either to ready grease or use her Ecclessitheurge Blessing of the Faithful ability or delay her turn while the situation develops she's going to do that last one and she'll delay quickly so the GM doesn't have to break out an egg timer.
Harmanuel Kendall: 1d20+1 = 16
The guy who just threw a potted plant at the Queen is a relation to guy who called him a cultist.
Kendall grabs the fern-thrower, which will prevent them from throwing more ferns, which is perfectly justifiable as a thing to do, but which will predictably lead to fern-thrower punching him, which will let Kendall hit back and he has 15 Strength and Power Attack. The analysis, rapid and wordless, continues: if Harmanuel Kendall makes the relative yelp it'll bring the guy who falsely accused him into the fight - which is just what he is hoping for.
Dean of Abjuration, Julaei Cangi: 1d20-2 = 16
Worry and pity. Young men are ridiculous.
She'd hope that Glorio manages at least, before the wizard turns him inside out, to teach Toff to be kinder with people who might kick you in the head.
But as the Headmaster hasn't learned that lesson yet, she doubts he ever will.
Old men are ridiculous too.
Greater invisibility.
Glorio: 1d20+11 = 14
You empty imper fucking chel I'll take a knife and sign my work so them devils know who sent'cha you fucking Stupid motherfucker would it have cost a copper pinch t'treat with me like equals? I'll show you hospitality and I'll serve it piping hot I'll school your Acadamaen self on all the ways that impers die down in Old Korvosa wouldn't have taken you an inch outta your way to tell us what'd gone down I'll paint this room in your yellow choler I'll spill your solly slop you tried your level best at Banditry you Stupid motherfucker and they'll be picking your whiskers from the gristle what's served at the meatshops by the water!
Acadamae Headmaster, Lord Toff Ornelos: 1d20+4 = 15
Oh.
Uh.
It seems that your initiative exceeds mine.
That it does.
Gods, I can't roll worth shit today.
I rolled another three.
You'd be paste otherwise, I'm telling you.
I'll take your word for it.
He's paste anyways, Glor.
I'm waiting in the wings for if he casts a spell.
And we've got four CL 7 magic missiles pointed his way.
If he so much as wiggles his casting fingers, we'll shoot him full of holes.
But I cast this spell ten days ago.
Fools.
Toff clucks his tongue - a free action - which activates his contingency.
And finds himself in the foyer of Togomor's mansion, albeit scrambled to the tune of 1d10 = 7 damage.
(That's the risk one runs, when one teleports to a false destination.)
He shares the foyer with seven stuffed dolls as look like purple dragons, which when sighted near a planar boundary are a pretty good sign that you'll find Headmaster Ornelos somewhere on that plane.
And he still has all his actions, so he casts greater invisibility.
You've a scant few round's reprieve before Toff comes through that door with a buffstack like Arnold Schwarzenegger.
You had best make the most of them.
Well, this is fine, I'll just murder Irevotnin.
Cressida Kroft: 1d20+0 = 15
My turn comes next, and I'll make safeguarding Korvosa's teleport capacity my priority -
Nah, go on 14 instead.
All the cool kids are doing it.
In a low and dangerous voice, Glorio Arkona asks why the first words out of Toff Ornelos's mouth when he teleported onto the deck of the Reprieve II weren't "by the way, Glor, the world is ending."
It seems more fucking important than his beef with the Queen.
And among other things, Glorio would have liked to tell the others on his boat.
I am busy, because unlike you I can actually do something about the world's greater problems, and I saw no need to lecture you at length.
It frankly wasn't worth my time to fill you in on the details, since the only thing I really need from you is the Wescrani removed.
Once I've undone everything that happened in Korvosa without me, I can move forward unhobbled -
Glorio Arkona rises from his lotus position in one violent motion,
- as if he teleported upright -
And kicks seated Lord Ornelos in the head.
The force of it knocks over the chair, Toff hits the ground hard, and Glorio would have been on him in a flash but there's an iridescent magic bubble snapping about him like the jaws of a trap and he lunges through the narrowing aperture and two assailants grab and are rebuffed and he's pouncing for Ornelos now that sonofabitch but Toff Ornelos clucks his tongue and disappears, and
Glorio: 1d20+11 = 14
Rage.
No you don't, no you fucking don't.
Glorio activates his mindreading as a free action; he doesn't care who notices themself making the save.
Ornelos isn't in range of it.
He's gone.
Growling like an animal, a five-foot step atop the table puts Glorio within range of Irevotnin, who Toff had chosen to sit nearby.
Salgar's 1d20+12 = 27 Will will hedge out explicit mindreading, but his face betrays sheer terror.
Salgar Irevotnin has ever in his life been disemboweled by a fiendish dire tiger.
He chiefly remembers its eyes, in the moment before its attack - and then pain, and being raised from the dead in the Bank of Abadar.
He no longer alieves Lord Arkona is human.
Drawing a knife would take his move action.
A claw/claw/bite routine would reveal more than he really ought, notes whatever part of his brain is still tracking that, and dealing lethal damage would be escalatory (notes the two rubbing neurons which care), and probably Evil I guess.
So he's going to activate his Boots of Speed and beat Salgar bloody with his bare hands.
1d20+23 = 30 1d4+4 = 5
1d20+23 = 37 1d4+4 = 5
1d20+18 = 23 1d4+4 = 8
1d20+13 = 15 1d4+4 = NA
1d20+ 8 = 28 2d4+8 = 12
This is less than ideal.
Didn't you learn contingency just this morning?
And I set it to trigger were I attacked by a shadow.
....!
I might be able to help you with that,
:(
30 points of damage would knock most ogres out.
(And leave the median strapping ogreish youth at 0 HP clean.)
Salgar was born with 3d6 = 8 Con, and lost 3 points of it to his Old Age for 5.
He compensates, as much as he can, with Toughness, a +2 belt, and the spell false life.
(Lesser age resistance hasn't done a thing for him in years, and he didn't know this morning to leave a slot for Delmore's offered 6th-circle version.)
He has 11d6-11 = 31 hitpoints plus 1d10+10 = 12 temp = 43 hitpoints effective.
Reduced now to 13.
Glorio vents his fury on the old schoolmaster as tried to cage him.
Salgar's face is a shattered mess by the end of the combination. He's broken his nose. He loses teeth.
But any attack that couldn't drop a buffalo will leave Master Salgar Irevotnin - if dazed and blinking blood from swollen eyes - very much still conscious.
Queen Ileosa Arabasti: 1d20+3 = 14
Sabina sensed the turning crowd before she did or processed the implications faster because when Glorio took a swing at Toff it was like dropping a torch on oil and people are screaming and fighting and throwing - throwing ceramic pots at her and Sabina dragged her out of the chair and she couldn't get her feet under herself at first and her arm hurts where Sabina grabbed it and she feels kind of angry at Sabina actually! as if had Sabina not assumed Ileosa a valid target no one else would have either and she doesn't know if that's true or not and she's going to stand between Sabina and the wall and draw her rapier and she's scared she'd be a lot more scared without Sabina here Sabina's scared and that's in itself frightening and most people aren't involved yet but she can tell that they will be and she's going to ready an action to cast hideous laughter on anyone who comes at them.
(It'd be mathematically sounder to use Inspire Courage here, but Ileosa isn't an adventuring bard and doesn't understand the martial power of song.)
She's scared.
She wishes that this weren't happening.
The political part of her brain will take a second to boot.
Most High Arch Megapope of Korvosa, Primate of Varisia: 1d20+3 = 14
Cleric Spells Prepared (CL 3rd, concentration +7)
2 - augury (already cast), bull’s strengthD, silence (DC 16)
1 - enlarge personD, magic weapon, sanctuary (DC 15), open slot
0 - create water, detect magic, light, mending
Ooh, this one too.
And how high are the ceilings in here?
It's a mansion, my dude.
Just don't hit your head on the crystal chandelier.
Then I'll five-foot out of melee range and enlarge the Whirlwind lady with Lunge!
Watch Sergeant Jope Chantsmo: 1d20+2 = 14
Jope Chantsmo (LG male human ranger 7/expert 1) used to be a Sable Company Marine, until he took an arrow to the knee and turned to tending shop.
Despite his advancing age, he's a very solid fighter. As a married man, with children, he'd have never abandoned the quiet life - until the quiet life abandoned him.
Much of Korvosa Initiative Group Yellow are huddled togetherish and could be split off from the others, or if not that, maybe distracted as one unit. Jope will get between them and the brawl and wave a sword and shout that this isn't a show and that they need to clear out.
By the rules, Diplomacy and Intimidate both take a minute - ten rounds - to get anywhere.
Such social skills are more useful during the monkey dance, to defuse a fight that someone wants to pick. It's maybe too late now for words.
What Jope expects to happen here is for someone to take a swing at him and incite his readied attack.
Korvosa Group Blue Group Initiative: 1d20+0 = 14
Group Blue are hitching their wagons to Lord Glorio Arkona.
It may or may not be wise, but he is the most popular man in the city.
You could say that Group Blue is pro-Ileosa - and some even are, it's true that the people who're fond of Glorio's charitable antics are also well-disposed toward's Ileosa's policy platform so far - but mostly they're opposed to Group Red and Group Yellow.
Some in Group Blue hate the Acadamae Wizards on principle, who have admittedly done much which can be righteously hated.
Others think that Lord Toff Ornelos is a pompous and arrogant and nakedly power hungry piece of shit, like all the other nobles, and at least the Queen's an outsider with reason to drain the swamp.
Others weren't opposed to House Ornelos before Toff opened in mouth - heck, some of them came in through this door with him - but nonetheless are now.
Others are in Group Blue because they think Field Marshal Kroft is and she once rescued a friend or relation of theirs from merrows or ghouls or from Gaedren Lamm.
Others have someone that they like in Group Blue or someone they don't in Red or Yellow.
(These aren't exclusive.)
Group Blue is aware that they're fighting uphill; they're fighting a whole bunch of powerful wizards, plus, if Group Blue loses, the story will be that they started it (when Lord Arkona kicked Lord Ornelos, even though anyone would agree that was provoked), plus, the Reds and Yellows have them outnumbered.
Their advantage is that some of Group Red and Yellow are going to go after the Queen, which hopefully means the Guard will fight the Reds and Yellows instead of Blues?
That, and their advantage is that Lord Arkona is, on top of being a 3rd-circle sorcerer, apparently a total ass-kicking machine.
And it looks like his goons are all loyal and brave and coordinated and quick on the uptake, too.
One member of Group Blue is going to run to back up Queen Ileosa - and get hit by her hideous laughter.
He makes the save to avoid utter debilitation, and giggles that he's friendly.
I guess that probably means that we're Group Blue?
Since we're bodyguards of the Queen.
One member of Group Blue draws a sword while charging the Pope.
Does a 20+3 = 22 hit? Take 1d8+1 = 9 slashing damage.
(That's a critical threat, but they rolled a 1 to confirm.)
I am at 19 hitpoints out of 28, and am curious, good sir, as to your logic.
I'm not even holding a weapon.
You just cast a spell, you have no leg to stand on.
Can you explain why you're upset enough with me to run me through?
Explain it like I'm five years old.
You stood in front of the Shoanti necromancer out of some holier-than-thou type narcissism, but fecklessly wouldn't draw steel to try and make us look like assholes for brawling you. Which left a bad taste in my mouth, y'know? And then you cast a spell to buff Watch Sergeant Kroft, who's on Toff Ornelos's team and if they win they'll see us all tortured and/or killed or imprisoned.
One member of Group Blue is going to slash the person who stabbed the likeable Caydenite who's also casting support spells on Field Marshal Kroft (who's on Group Blue's side, as she knows because Kroft didn't let anyone attack Ileosa last night and told Toff's crew just now that they couldn't cherrypick the rules that advantaged them). 1d20+5 = 11 which hits and 1d8+6 = 11 which drops him, spurting blood, into the negative hitpoints.
One member of Group Blue will try and Grapple Spellmaster Maganrad Hestrigsen and roll a natural 19 on the attempt.
The wizard won't be getting many spells off while this roustabout's attached.
Two members of Group Blue will jump the two members of Group Red who'd tried to pull Lord Arkona off the table.
One member of Group Blue will ready an action to shake Orianna Delmore's chair if she tries to cast a spell.
He's heard that vigorous motion foils concentration.
One member of Group Blue is a 2rd-circle wizard with 11 wisdom who's going to cast summon swarm to cover Master Orianna Delmore (and everyone near her) in thousands of spiders the size of silver coins.
So she can't get a spell off, see.
It may or may not become relevant that the caster of summon swarm has no control over who the conjured spiders decide to attack.
Maralictor Briasus: 1d20-3 = 14
Maralictor Briasus is not dexterous, as 4th-level fighters go.
As the 3d6 wasn't kind to him, he's used to patiently waiting his turn.
But today he rolled well - it must have been fate - and, while there isn't an open charge lane (considering the hectic and crowded room), he's standing within 20 feet of Glorio Arkona and wielding a +1 humanbane greatsword.
Deliver yourself to justice, Lord Arkona, or die (in compliance with Act 4682-116, AKA the Citadel Vraid Act, Section 2, page 1)!
1d20+10 = 27 4d6+17 = 27
1d20+8 = 25 2d6+15 = NA
It's like there's a scream or a sob in the back of her throat and she can't get it out.
There, I've updated the emergency procedures manual. Next time there's a volcanic eruption, earthquake, sandstorm and flood during a bombardment of living, angry meteorites, we'll have a clear plan to follow.
- How the Temperaments Deal with Failure, Anna Moss
Cressida Kroft: 1d20+0 = 14
That things got this bad to begin with is entirely on her.
There are, in retrospect, many, many individual things that she should have handled differently.
Well... well, actually, who knows, her first stab at an improvement ("I shouldn't have taken Lyvina aside, I should have stayed in the room to stay on top of defusing tension") wouldn't have been an improvement at all (learning what Lyvina's deal is was objectively huge, her mistake there is that she didn't do it sooner - the mistake was not making time to follow up with the team of eccentrics she'd assigned to Ileosa earlier this morning). She could have moderated the discussion better had she been on better terms with Ileosa or Sabina Merrin... no, Cressida is on good terms with Sabina Merrin, her mistake there is that she didn't use it to see people removed from the room. Better too many than too few.
She should have kicked Toff's posse out of the room immediately when she found them in here. And then moved to a different room, with a door.
Anyway, the upshot is that there are many, many individual things that she should have handled differently, too many to get into right now.
Most of those mistakes seem downstream of this one: she improvised poorly and that was largely because she was frazzled, overwhelmed, grieving, exasperated, indignant, and angry.
She should have taken the time to center herself, and to see through Heaven's eyes...
To see through Heaven's eyes, see people as people, as children too young in a world that's too harsh. To see people as people and not obstacles to manage...
...It's usually not this hard for her to reach for.
She doesn't want for it to be this hard to reach for.
She's furious. She's in grief. She's suddenly standing at 11 feet and 4 inches tall which is the kind of thing which happens sometimes in her line of work and which means she really needs to get her head in the game because her guardsman is casting limited spells in the justified belief that this will improve the situation.
The world is falling apart and she's the only one who seems to get it because they have no common sense so she had to try alone to do it all and it wasn't enough because how could it be enough?
How many of Korvosa's spells, how much of its blood, how many irreplaceable consumables, how much of those intangible things called Trust and Fellowship and Community Spirit has been and will be spent in this six-second round?
And how many shadows were born last round, below the ground or in the woods or on the dark far side of the world?
And everyone's fighting instead of doing anything remotely sensible... because she didn't channel them constructively.
The big takeaway is not that she should have been less harriable by [the deaths of friends, their damnation, the ruin of her city, of her country, of the planet, less harriable by hostile gods, by all the threats [Worldwound, Whispering Way, Geb, the Numerian Iron Gods Altronus mentioned(?), doubtless others] no longer in check, by the self-admitted cultists in the room, by Ileosa reading Kroft's Guardsmen's minds and finding horrible weapons which she announces to the room, by the sudden realization that each of [Altronus, Choryon, Mull, and Lyvina] have immense destructive potential and she's not sure how far she trusts at least three of those four, by the insanity and shortsightedness of everyone in this mansion].
(She should have, but that's not the main takeaway.)
She needs to design a process that's robust to error and misapplication and makes better results happen by default, even and especially when there's no one in the room who's in their right mind.
She needs to do that later.
It is not useful to be standing around in a fugue state in the middle of a combat situation.
Sometimes people center themselves by praying. She's going to try that.
Cressida's an Abadaran in the sense that Abadarans are some of her favorite people and she tells people she's an Abadaran because it helps them understand her and sometimes is enough that they stop trying to press her into making an exception on this one thing this one time come on Field Marshal see reason.
Sometimes she prays to Abadar.
It's said that gods can hear a heartfelt prayer, and Abadar has done so much to improve her world that ccing Him on things she thinks He'd want to know about is really the least that she can do.
He's never answered her, which she understands to mean she's doing near enough to what He would in her shoes, or that the things He disprefers aren't things she'd change were He to ask, or, that Kroft has never actually successfully targeted a prayer at Abadar (you need more than the name - you need the mindset, and there's no feedback on whether you've got the mindset right) and this whole time has been muttering into the air.
Abadar, if you're listening, if you care, if it's useful to you, if it isn't useful to you on net but one thousand golden sails to your church would tip the balance, I could use any help you can spare.
(She knows 1,000 gp won't make a difference, considering the size of the transaction costs there's no way that Abadar winds up that precisely neutral on any intervention. Still, she has to ask and can't spare more.)
Cressida isn't an Abadaran in the sense of trying to live up to Abadaran philosophy.
In that sense she's not really religious at all.
She's read any number of holy texts, and learned from them, but - she's never understood the people who twist themselves up in seminaries to take on some god's shape. Kroft wants to be her best self, and has looked for gods who Seem To Mostly Understand instead of looking to Mostly Understand a God.
Cressida Kroft is doing her own thing. Law and Good are guiding lights, but - this is hard to express in the languages she knows - she'd toss them out if they didn't serve her conception of honor and duty and righteousness.
There are a few other gods she sometimes prays to.
She likes Torag. If Torag were in charge of Heaven, she expects she'd have at least a different set of complaints vis a vis the way it's run.
Erastil gets some important things that Abadar doesn't, and Jaidi does as well.
Kroft long felt like she had a lot of common ground with Abadar, and a lot with Torag and Jaidi and with Erastil, but wasn't entirely simpatico with any of them. No one gets an afterlife written to exactly their values, and keeping Korvosa alive on the Material, and living with integrity, were at any rate more important to her than exact shades of postmortal paradise - what really matters is staying in the general area of Lawful Good - but she did research Requius to compare with Axis...
...and learned of the Grandmother Crow.
Andoletta's faithful shared Kroft's conception of Lawful Good more precisely than anyone she'd met in life or heard existed in Heaven.
It was gratifying to learn that they and She exist.
Andoletta, if you're listening and there's anything you can do. I've tried so hard, for so long. Help me not to let my city down. Give me the strength to guide them.
When she first became Korvosa's Field Marshal, the youngest in its history, she prayed that Abadar mark her as His if He supported her and wanted her to help her keep the position. It would have gone a very long way to stop people tittering and maneuvering.
Gods rarely cleric powerful wizards or fighters. First-circle cleric powers wouldn't have added much to her capabilities at that point, and even less to them now. (Not that she'd turn them down! AoE stabilize-the-dying is great, plus it'd be nice to be able to read first-circle scrolls and never take two tries at a wand.)
But it'll usually make more sense for a god that's mostly aligned with a powerful mortal to put magic powers on someone who doesn't have anything else much to contribute, and so have two pieces on the board instead of the one.
It's somewhat more common for high-level characters to be made inquisitors, or paladins. (The term for this is "dipping", though Kroft isn't super clear on why.)
(At any given circle, a cleric's magic gifts beat the pants off an equivalent-circle inquisitor or paladin.
But first-circle paladin gifts - or even pre-circle paladin gifts - plus martial competence beats the pants off of first-circle cleric gifts plus martial competence. It's cheaper for the god to get similar results, as long as the people who'd be your minions are excellent fighters or you expect them to become so.
And if a god "dips" inquisitor or paladin on someone who's already high-level in their own right, they'll get some use out of those powers in high-stakes situations and earn their own exp.
That said, dips are still less common than inquisitors and paladins who start from nearer to the ground floor.
(Perhaps - as the gods are doubtless good at scouting talent - enpaladining someone who'll predictably become an excellent warrior leads to a better paladin who's just as good a warrior, and is the best bang for your godly buck?))
When Kroft asked Abadar to mark her, she knew He'd be spending the costs for mostly social benefits, and He'd have to spend enough at least to make her an inquisitor - because she isn't fit to be His paladin.
She was willing to pay him such and such an amount for it, but they couldn't make a deal.
Which is fair enough, transaction costs are high here. (...although she hopes He even heard it.)
I am 80% sure that "social benefits" is a term that refers to welfare for the unemployed, sick, retired, or low income,
and is not a term which applies to joining the inquisition for inscrutable monkey-political reasons.
So she doesn't really know what she's asking for, can't think of anything to pray for that it'd make sense for a god to grant.
Torag, Jaidi, Erastil.
Maybe she just wants a sign that there's Someone out there who understands?
...Maybe what seminary hopefuls want, is not to be alone.
Erastil would say that she needs to buckle up and do her part.
Cressida Kroft would say that too.
How does the song go... "The work to do is here for you, put your shoulder to the wheel!"
The music will stop eventually, but while it plays she'll do whatever seems likeliest to to preserve Korvosa.
Alright, she's centered.
Or - as centered as she can quickly get.
If Anyone is listening and wants to help me wrangle these poor idiots, wipe out the shadows or solve material scarcity, put stitches in the Worldwound, take out Tar-Baphon, get a grip on Geb, iron out the Iron Gods, foil Rovagug's evil plan, monitor Those Fucking Guys and keep them from destroying the world, if there is a god out there of holding this all together when no one ever listens to you, that Anyone should give me cleric or inquisitor or paladin powers and five wish diamonds and a pony; I need to get to work.
With her Standard Action she'll 1d20+13 = 23 pull the Initiative Group Blue roustabout off of Spellmaster Hestrigsen with one enlarged hand and fling him to the ground with a warning to stay there.
With her Move Action she hurries the length of the table towards where Arkona is beating Irevotnin.
To AVOID one possible MISUNDERSTANDING I have included a「LIGHT HORSE」in ADDITION to your「PONY」
The sudden appearance of a「LIGHT HORSE」and「PONY」is the fifth most interesting thing that's happened in the last five seconds, right after the sudden appearance of thousands of spiders.
The startled equines appear where there's (barely) space and immediately start whinnying and thrashing and trying to make space for themselves; these things happen, in civic brawls.
Any Korvosan would recognize them at a glance as summoned horses. Unless summoned by a custom version of the spell,「LIGHT HORSES」and「PONIES」summoned with mount or summon monster all look pretty much identical. The horses are brown with a somewhat darker brown mane and slightly lighter brown socks and a longsuffering face that'd be utterly unremarkable if it weren't so uncannily familiar, the ponies have bigger heads and lighter coats and are otherwise the same.
(Korvosa as a city went much heavier on wizards than it did mundane stable-masters, and as both mount and communal mount last hours per level and don't require hay and oats or anywhere to sleep, the city in truth contained very few horses who had of mares been born.)
This particular horse and this particular pony are resolute creatures, and don't look exactly like the model summoned by mount. Still, there's a strong family resemblance.
Mounts come with a bit and bridle and riding saddle. They don't usually come with saddlebags, but, like, if someone cast a version of the spell that included saddlebags that would not actually be more interesting than the spell that summoned thousands of spiders.
Saddlebags aren't interesting.
What it feels like to be a cleric varies, because if you perturb a part of a human's brain the rest of the brain will generate all kinds of explanations of what just happened. It's not outside the space of experiences that people report without, in fact, actually being a cleric, because they're fasting or on drugs or just meditating very intensely, but this doesn't usually produce a lot of confusion because afterwards you either have spells, or you don't.
Commonly reported: a feeling of being seen by a penetrating beam of light. That feeling that you sometimes get in a dream where you see someone and hug them and know as a sort of background fact that they are the love of your life and you are reuniting after a long separation, even if your awake mind is pretty sure that person doesn't exist. A feeling of noticing there's something in your chest, or in your arms, that's been there your whole life but which you just realized you can move. A sense of being showered in transcendent divine love. A really intense variant of coming out of subspace. A moment of all your sensory input sending 'THE DIVINE' instead of their usual format of sensory input. A feeling of opening your eyes, except they were already open.
- Mad Investor Chaos and the Woman of Asmodeus
It feels like she's... known and appreciated and approved of by The Universe or at least by something vast and vastly knowledgeable. She might describe it by saying that the world makes more sense now (but does it correspond to anything that now makes more sense...?). Shivers run down Cressida's spine and there are warm arms around her and she gasps in surprise and her eyes feel watery and there's Someone else walking with her trying to hold the world together when it seems no one else can make the time to prevent their own destruction she's not alone never alone and she and She are old friends met at last for the very first time she feels a soaring rush of affection towards whichever understanding shithead motherfucker cast this spell to make her feel like they were the biggest pea in her pod.
It is teeth-grindingly infuriating that a wizard would make her feel this way in an attempt to suborn or debilitate her. She would much rather be hacked to pieces with a battle-ax, and she speaks here from experience without hyperbole. It is violating to stab someone's brain in the part that makes them feel transcendent joy or buddy-buddy with you. Not to mention illegal to do to a civil servant with her security clearances!
The member of Group Red who'd held his action is going to move and attack the adventurer who dropped the guy who attacked the self-styled Arch Megapope of Korvosa.
Like the great majority of panache-y people with three levels in Swashbuckler, pretty Percell Peltherianon is an Evil plug-ugly who's used to winning duels and streetfights.
His foe today's a better fighter than most, but she's an adventurer and he's a swash. She'd do better than he against manticores, but his art is slaying men.
Both have over twenty hitpoints, and (if they hit) do ~1d8+6, so this fight could take a round or five to reveal its winner.
She's pretty sure she bombed the Will save here, since alongside her anger she still feels extremely affectionate towards whoever the caster is. (For some reason her brain insists that she'd love to work in their office or have them as an employee. She feels certain that they write meticulous reports.)
Lady Leroung: 1d20+0 = 13
What an absolute clusterfuck.
House Leroung as a culture and institution is opposed to struggling for power. Every time Korvosa has a bumpy patch or outright civil war, of the Dock Families you'll find House Jeggare playing both sides and House Leroung playing neither. Leroung isn't the biggest winner of the Great Houses, but neither does it suffer any catastrophic losses - steadily gaining wealth and influence through one administration after another.
Now, five tenths of not making yourself a target is never being in the same room as anyone hot-tempered and picking them, and another tenth is not being in close quarters with wizards casting area of effect spells, and another tenth is not being a woman in the same room as a group of rambunctious men who just won a fight and may or may not hate nobility on general principles.
So, for her part Lady Eliasia Leroung is inclined to get out of here.
The one problem is, that there's fighting between her and the door.
Oh, two problems, actually, and the other problem is that shipping by sea possibly isn't going to be a thing anymore and her terrestrial assets have all been overrun by shadows and there's no strong reason to believe that after this power struggle anyone will come crawling to House Leroung for loans or legitimacy and she feels like maybe a lot of the people in this room (including her, half the time, it's so hard to wrap her mind around) are living mentally in an entirely different world than they're living physically in.
How silly of her to forget that.
Delay initiative.
(...But that they're not very good at presenting those reports to Castle Korvosa or City Hall. Cressida Kroft needs to champion her enchanter's ideas to King Eodred and shelter them from office politics, apparently(??).)
(Not entirely unlike the dwarf with 5 Splendor the Bank of Abadar lent her as a liason and she refused to ever return.... and that's a painful memory, because - Groduk's heroism last night won him +4 Charisma, as with most of her most favorite people.)
Altronus: 1d20+8 = 12
I was gonna pop the one who stabbed Barry, but it looks like he's been handled.
People should wear uniforms, so we know whether to kill them before their initiative.
You and I should open a boutique.
"Wear our Foeman's Full-Dress Uniform to be absolutely certain that the heroes don't accidentally not kill you!!"
You may want to workshop that pitch.
At least Cressida knows that she hasn't been Dominated or Confused, since those would have slagged her Mind Sentinel Medallion.
Kroft has ever before arrested a wizard through the effect of a Charm or Compulsion, and while it's not something she'd like to rely on it's not exactly like it'd be more helpful here to recuse herself.
Should I take out Lord Argonian?
Brave words!
But the guy makes five attacks a round.
So do I, and he's cheating with Boots of Speed.
If he's a chained monk, he must be at least eighth level but weaker than eleventh...
How many monks do you know which flip out and randomly attack people?
How many monks has Arthur ever played?
Seriously, though, who would be dumb enough to try and Enchant her.
That's a brisk walk to the Longacre Building and a very long round trip. And like as not you'll do your time and leave bereft a wagging wizard's tongue.
Maybe it was an AoE that caught her by -
d'oh.
Cressida Kroft CR 10
XP 9,600
Female human aristocrat 1/fighter 9/cleric-inquisitor-paladin 1
LG Medium humanoid (human)
Init +0; Senses Perception +19
Defense
AC 22, touch 10, flat-footed 22 (+10 armor, +2 shield) (+1 dodge if the only character threatening an opponent)
hp 118 (1d8+10d10+55)
Fort +13, Ref +3, Will +14 (+2 vs. fear, +2 resistance vs. mind-affecting spells, spell-likes, Su)
Offense
Speed 30 ft. (30 ft. in armor)
Melee mwk longsword +15/+10 (1d8+4/19-20), or mwk longsword +15/+10 (1d8+5/19-20),
or mwk longsword (power attack) +12/+7 (1d8+10/19-20), or mwk longsword +12/+7 (1d8+14/19-20),
or dagger +12/+7 (1d4+2/19-20)
Ranged mwk composite longbow +12/+7 (1d8+3/x3),
or thrown weapon +10/+5
Special Attacks channel positive energy 5/day (DC 13, 1d6), judgment 1/day, smite evil 1/day (+2 attack and AC, +1 damage), weapon training (heavy blades +2, bows +1)
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 1st, concentration +6)
8/day – caging strike, touch of law
at will – detect evil, lorekeeper
Cleric spells (CL 1st, concentration +6)
1st – open domain slot, open slot (x3)
orisons – open slot (x3)
D domain spell; Domains knowledge, law
Inquisitor spells (CL 1st, concentration +6)
1st (3/day) – alarm, heightened awareness
orisons – detect magic, guidance, read magic, sift
Inquisition imprisonment
Tactics
Cressida Kroft prefers to fight at range if possible, only taking the risk of hand-to-hand combat when it can't be avoided - either because arrows would be too lethal, or because they wouldn't be lethal enough. And when she has allies with fewer hitpoints than her, she'll almost always try and take the hits for them.
Kroft likes to use her net or bolas to soften a target before engaging them in melee.
She keeps wands of cure light wounds and protection from evil in her spring loaded wrist sheathes.
She uses her shrink item'd barricades and bonfire to control the battlefield or provide cover from ranged attacks.
Against enemies that she has outmatched, Cressida fights defensively and tries to arrange a surrender. She uses combat maneuvers heavily, and will attempt to pin the poor sod and apply her manacles. When Cressida has allies with which to flank a foeman, she uses Dirty Fighting to avoid provoking attacks of opportunity with her combat maneuvers. Otherwise, she'll try and take away their weapons so they can't resist.
Against enemies that outmatch her, or are close enough to raise her concern, Cressida prefers to fight with numerous powerful allies, using specialty equipment acquired for the purpose and following a plan that's been gamed out and drilled extensively. When that's not possible, she tries to make up the difference with consumable items (if she thinks they'll make the difference); applying her oil of magic weapon to bypass DR, or drinking a potion of silence to thwart spellcasters that rely on verbal components, or poisoning her weapons with blue whinnis.
Statistics
Str 14 Dex 11 Con 20 Int 22 Wis 20 Cha 15
Base Atk 10; CMB +12 (14 trip & disarm) (+2 if using a heavy blade to trip or disarm (hey, but nandwich, earlier didn't (shut UP Altronus shut up shut up shut up))); CMD 22 (24 vs trip & disarm)
Feats Artful Dodge, Dirty Fighting, Improved Disarm, Improved Trip, Iron Will, Lunge, Mobility, Persuasive, Power Attack, Quick Draw, Spring Attack, Whirlwind Attack
Skills Appraise (3 ranks) +12, Craft (alchemy) (1 rank) +10, Diplomacy (11 ranks) +19, Handle Animal (1 rank) +6, Heal (1 rank) +9, Intimidate (11 ranks) +20, Knowledge (local, history, nature) (5 ranks) +14, Knowledge (arcana, geography, religion) (1 rank) +10, Perception (11 ranks) +19, Profession (11 ranks) +19, Ride (1 rank) +1, Sense Motive (11 ranks) +20, Stealth (11 ranks) +11, Use Magic Device (10 ranks) +12
Special armor check penalty -3, monster lore (+5 to knowledge checks to identify the abilities and weaknesses of creatures), stern gaze (+1 intimidate, sense motive)
Combat Gear +1 arrow-catching living steel quickdraw shield, oil of hold portal, oil of magic weapon**, potion of cure light wounds, potion of delay poison, potion of expeditious retreat**, potion of gaseous form, potion of silence, wand of Abadar’s truthtelling (26 charges), wand of protection from evil (21 charges), wand of cure light wounds (14 charges), heightened continual flame locket (4th-circle), shrink item'd bonfire (6 days remaining), shrink item'd pedestrian barricade (x2, 6 days remaining), shrink item'd rowboat (6 days remaining), bolas (x2), net, blue whinnis (4 doses), tanglefoot bag, smokestick;
Other Gear +1 fullplate, +1 spellstoring mithral longsword***, +1 adaptive phase locking longbow***, mwk longsword, mwk composite longbow (+2 Str) with 20 arrows, dagger, bag of holding type I, belt of mighty constitution +2, headband of mental prowess +2 (intelligence and wisdom, keyed to Stealth), mind sentinel medallion*, ring of mind shielding*, ring of sustenance, bandolier, marbles, manacles, signal horn, spring loaded wrist sheathes (x2)
Bag of Holding wand of detect magic (34 charges), 200 arrows, bear traps (4), bullseye lantern, chalk, cloth sacks, crowbar, drill, grappling hook, greatclub, hammer, inkpen, keys**, lamp oil, parchment, paper, pencils, rations, reference library, rope, sack of flour, sealing wax, signet ring**, shovel, steel mirror, twine, everything else she logically should be carrying but which doesn't come to mind, not a polearm though she doesn't want to risk puncturing the bag of holding, I guess she could saw the point off a lucerne hammer, and sand the sharp edges, actually she'll just have a custom case for a glaive-guisarme with latches she feels confident in, 100 gp, 1000 gp*
*items marked with an asterisk are on loan from the Korvosan Guard
**these items don’t exist because they were expended last night and not yet replaced
***these items are not part of her regular loadout and were commandeered last night
The setting doc says that the Arkonas are a notorious band of criminals, with sorcerous powers. I bet he's an arcane trickster or maybe a barbarian.
If he's not a monk, he's Two-Weapon-Fighting and has 6-10 BAB.
If we leave the high-level NPCs alone, odds are they only fight each other. If we get involved, all bets there are off.
I think we should maybe have a clear idea of what we're trying to accomplish by shooting someone before we decide to shoot them.
What's best for Korvosa here?
Governor Mallard. I recognized your foul stench when I was brought onboard...
?
I should have expected to find you holding my leash.
:eyeroll: (affectionate)
No, but really, what's the outcome that we're steering for here?
The outcome I'm steering for this round is saving the adventurer person who saved our healer.
What's Perry the Platypus's flat-footed touch?
Ten.
The answer to that question is generally ten.
Percell Peltherianon's non-touch flat-footed AC is 14, in case that comes up.
She's not entirely sure how she feels about this.
She is - incredibly grateful for the help, and for just - the reassurance that she's not alone in this.
And she wants to help her goddess. (She thinks that They're a goddess, though she doesn't know how far to trust that - maybe her mind is just jumbled and filling in details it came up with itself.) If they're on her side against Rovagug the evidence of her eyes says they need more power in their corner, and in addition she believes it for inarticulable and not-particularly-trusted reasons.
But getting useful magic powers that she'll lose for acting in ways she otherwise might think best feels potentially corrosive. She's seen priests of Abadar who've lost their Law balancing Good with Evil while they try to earn it back. It seems tremendously frustrating and silly.
She hopes her goddess is LG, so she has leeway to drift LN or NG... oh no.
Pop quiz!
You're a powerful outsider within a step of LG mediocre visibility of the material plane unless you're spending more there than you care to. A powerful LG fighter asks You to make her your cleric, inquisitor, or paladin.
Which do you pick?
Do you... pick the simultaneously cheapest and most effective option, the limitation of which is that you can only give it to people who ping LG, which is in this case seemingly no limitation at all?
She really hopes They didn't.
Paladins are held to a higher standard than people who are judged Lawful Good, and Cressida Kroft hasn't always lived to even that gentler standard.
She serves in the military of a literal evil queen, and it's not like Eodred was much if any better. She works for a state that uses torture and mutilation as punishments for crimes and in times of war buys human scalps.
It's not even that she strongly expects to need the leeway to wiggle from LG, nor that she's concerned that she'll convince herself to do the wrong-but-LG thing out of a reluctance to lose her useful magic powers. It just seems criminal. People can trust paladins, because paladins have religious fervor and orders and gods that they wouldn't want to disappoint, because they've taken oaths, because they were from the start people who wanted to be paladins. If Someone made Cressida Kroft a paladin, that's bad for the legitimacy of paladins.
Cressida Kroft thinks it'd be wrong of her to alter her behavior in light of having become a paladin, except insofar as it's trivial enough to be directly worth continuing to have the powers of a 1st-level paladin.
Any real paladins who found out would be so justifiably upset.
I'll spend a grit, spend a ki point.
Percival can take
1d20+5 = 8 1d8+1d6+4 = NA
1d20+5 = 16 1d8+1d6+4 = 15
and these daggers are to hit against his regular flat-footed:
1d20+5 = 13 1d4+1d6+3 = NA
1d20+5 = 15 1d4+1d6+3 = 8
1d20+5 = 25 2d4+1d6+6 = 15[1][2]
-
1. I forgot to include his penalty for firing into melee (at level three, Altronus doesn't have Precise Shot) but it doesn't wind up making a difference so I'm not super fussed about it.
2. Also his Initiative should be two points lower, I was counting a +2 bonus for being a Gunslinger that Gunslingers don't get until level 3 (and Altronus didn't linger that long in that class)[3]
3. Also I should actually stat him up, at least for internal use, to avoid these mistakes[4]
4. I've been somewhat reluctant in part because while I haven't yet I can pretend that he's better at charop than his author.
Rolling out from from beneath the table, an alien hunter strikes.
BANG! BANG!
His alchemical weapon shakes and roars like splitting stone, and a choking white smoke tears out of it, musty and sulfuric.
Through the veil of smoke passes a poignard - thrown to free a reloading hand - and then two more which both strike home.
And again the weapon reports and fills the enclosed room with deafening noise and blinding smoke.
Percell Peltherianon falls.
The noise further startles the startled horses.
(Fortunately, they're fairly resolute.)
Percell has -10 hitpoints out of 13 Con, and is very glad to have put his Favored Class bonus in hitpoints.
That's the third most interesting thing to happen in the last three seconds.
Fighters as strong as Percell Peltherianon won't fall to any old stiff breeze; if it can happen to him, it can happen to near anyone.
38 points of damage, hm.
That's not utterly terrible and only oh-point-seventy-six damage behind what I'd expect on average, the crit makes up for the missed first shot... but if I'd rolled a little higher - or had +2 to hit this round - it'd have been 50ish damage at least.
Lyvina, can you get in here and tell your god to bless me?
We've leveled up so fast with so little downtime. I really need to finish crafting my second pistol, or my DPR will fall even further off...
Not that I'm complaining, mind, about how we're on track to hit LV 20 before three weeks are out.
Ḑ̸͑̍̕O̸̞͖͕̙̿Ç̶̯̦͔̓̽̎Ư̴̞̯̯̲̿M̵̖̑Ę̵̅͆̆N̴̫̬̰͂T̷̡͂̋ ̸̡͕̣͚̰̣͂̄̚͝#̶̣͒̀̉́̚:̷̮͇̬́͐̋͠ 17967-8054-32-2115481 transcript of ̵p̶̡͈͙̊s̵̥̍̍̌́̚͝ē̴͚̲̰̼͉̺̍̂u̷̱̻͍̪̥̓͋͊̄͘d̷̢͚̀̌̕̚ö̶̡̤̟̦͉̣́-̵̜̦̘̄h̶̻͉̫̗̻̄y̷̲̯̑̍p̸̠̳̣̮̐̚͝o̴̤̒̈́t̵͈̞͕́h̷̨̛͍̰̝̗̒̄̈́̃̏e̷̪̞͖͖͛͆̉t̵͓̜̥̟̱͆̂͊̽i̴̧͎̔̀̋c̶̺̚ͅä̴̧̦͓́̑͘l̶͕͙͔̪̏̊̅̏̇ ̵636F6E766572736174696F6E2077697468 F̷̧̣̀̚R̶͉̹̀̈G̸̼͓̑̉͆͌̅̚M̴̖̐͐͝ (actualized)
[̴̡̭̯͊͜į̴̠̦͍̞̏́n̴̡̫̮̬͚̦̔͊͊̊ḯ̶̩͈̘̌̆̃̽̕t̶̡̖͓̟̒̐̄į̷̮̮͖̀ḁ̵̪͖̍͐t̷͙̬̖͒i̷͓͈̙͚̟̿ǹ̶͔̓̈́͛̕g̸̨̱̯̪͉̦̀̄͌̎̃ ̵̠͉̙̠̹͆͂͗̿̚p̶̼͚̆͑ś̶͚̒ĕ̴̫̱͊͝u̴͔̻̙̬̍̓́͂͝d̶̙̫͈̿ỏ̴̭̣̝͍̚͝ͅ-̷̩́̇͊h̷̥̘͇͔͍͑̒̚̕͝ỳ̵̟̰̣͔͝ͅp̶̰̉͝o̸̫̗̔̚t̴̺̖̟́͂̋͋̀͠ḩ̷̛͓͖̈́̅͒ͅe̴͓͇͈̞͍̓̆t̵̢̟̞͆ị̶̉̇̀́c̶͉̈́̄a̴̱̥̹̜͙̥͊͒̊l̷̡̛̞̘̱͎̂̂͋́ ̵̛͈͈t̵̝̠͉̋́̏̚r̴̘̬̲̰̜̔͋͘͠a̷̠̭̱͑̍͌̂̌̒n̸̹͛̆͜s̶̹͇̩͖̺̀̈́̃́͒͆ṁ̴̧̖͘ͅḯ̵̥̏ş̶͙͆̐s̵̨̧̺̲̗͒̅͊̀͒͘͜i̶̢̛͉̭o̸̼̝͘͝n̶̡͑̋̎͝]̴̣̭̎̽̿̂
There's a level of reality 736F6D65687768657265206265747765656E20546872656164206C6576656C and Creation 6C6576656C, which might or might not exist. If it exists, the entities 66726F6D2074686174206C6576656C206861766520736F6D65 limited observations of both Creation and 546872656164206C6576656C73, and can determine actions 6F662074686520666F757220616E6F6D616C69657320696E20746865204372656174696F6E206C6576656C, which of course also 6861732072657665726273206F6E20546872656164206C6576656C.
If it doesn't exist, then the anomalies hallucinate its existence, and take the same actions anyway.
It is vital that 7̸̟̫͗4̴̫͕̒́́6̵̙̘̘̆͆̓8̵̙̊6̷͈̒̿5̶̧̜̟͋̈́2̵̧̝͂̒ͅ0̵̤̕6̶̪̮̓͛͘5̴̪̼̒6̴̢̟͐͝È̷͉7̸̼͙̈́̚4̷̘̻͎̾͝6̶̢̼͓͛9̴̳̬̀̔7̷̙̖͍̂́̈́4̵͙̈͘6̷̣̫̫̀9̴̯͖̍́̚6̷̘̻̅̓5̷̩͑̔7̸̰͛3̷̢̫̆̐̄2̸̧̰̣́̅0̸̜̤̻͛͊̈́6̴̩͉́̓͋ͅF̴̟̞̑̽͘6̷̧̩̌̿̐6̷̧̲͒̍̚2̵͔̝͙̃0̵̨̖̀̓́7̴̢̣̲́4̸̡̛6̴͙͓͒͂8̸̛̝̟̾6̵̛̺̍5̷̻̬͐̔͒2̸̼̾0̴̛̬̇̇4̶̛̤̳̿͛7̵̭̄̑͂6̸͚͙͚̀̈́̉1̵̩̈́6̸͎̎̂͠D̶̜̭̅6̵̬͒̊̿5̷͕̦͖̔́͠2̸̺̐0̸̡̖̖͒̎̏6̶̘̣̼͛̂C̵̞̆͑6̷̘͖͚̌̈́5̴͕̀̿7̴̠͐̈́6̶͓͓̘́6̵̗͛5̶̳̭́6̵͉͗͂͌C̷̺̝̆͋̕ do not become aware of the full structure, or the Ţ̴̧̡̨̛͓̣͚̮̲̱̝̭̰̪͚̟̥͈̫̳̲̝̠̘̗͕͓̤̻͍̺͙͇̰͕͚̫̭̀̑̒͒̇͂̿̋̇̄͜͠h̴̢̢̧̛̛̛͔̭̬͚̱͚̩͎̻̥̭̮̞͎͉͙̭͇̖̤̱̫̲̟̪͔̺̞̲̦̟̦̯͔̬̖̹̠̖̄͌̈́̊͌r̶͚̗͔͍̍̽̌̈́̆̉̋̓̏̍́͆̆̐̌̄ͅe̵̝̼̠̗̮̞̮̻̰̱̘̲̜̹̳͉̭̣̽̀̀̆̒̒̓͆̎͗̈́͊̊̔̑̾͆̄̀͘̚ą̷͓̞̳̳͉͈̣̞͍͉̗̬͇̞͈̗͎̩̯̜̣͖̟̠͎̜͎͙̳̘̭̲̱̞̻̣̤̪̺̪̆̈̋̎ͅd̷̡̡̧̧̰͕̼͉̟̩͍̘̤͍̞̤̭̮̼͙̰̣̠̻̗̰͔̼̳̳̪̬̜͖̹̩̻̘̾̂͋͗̃̂͑̌̋̈́̌̐́̈́͗̄̄͒͌̂͐̀̆̎͋̅͘̚̚͝͝͠ 6C6576656C in particular. 4974206D69676874 escalate paradox values exponentially, 726573756C74696E6720696E t̷̡̧̨̨̖̹̳͙͛̿̈́́͆̌͗̀̈́̓̈́̅͐͗̓̽́̈͒͐͝ǒ̶̧̻̞͔͈̼̘̭͍̮̟̠̞̪̩̪͕̰̻̞̹̪̺͓͇͇͈͈̱̟͕̺̫̈͐̕̚͜ẗ̵͎̻́̆͗̈́̀̋̆́͋̐͛̉̎̌̊͗̀̄̅̈͐̽̀̓̈̂̚͘͜͝͠ą̸̢̨̧͕͎͙͈̲̤̣̙͎̤̻̠͇̼̺̗̑̊̽͆̔̒̎̌̌̿͋͑͊̊͆̃̈l̸̡̺͚̰̰̣̭̦̖͕̩͔̗̱̼̤̲̞̫̇̇̇̈ͅ ̵̢̢̻̺̲̘̜̼̰͖͖̜̱͓̞̬̼̫̪̳̥̹̱̮̤̜̻͖̜̭̙̮̱͖̫̙̤̦̥̙̏͑͊͆̓̊̃͐̈̔̉͌̿̌̚͠u̷̧̝̳̼̲̳̥̻̤̰̪͖̙̥̯̲̱̦̳̣̺͔͉̣͊͐̈͌̎̉̍̆̓́̅͌̓̎̾̑̓̒̔̆͊̔͒́̈̈͂̔͝͝n̶̨̛̼̭̟̥̪̰̰̗̟̱͚̪̰̳̦̞̞͔͖̠̗̠̬͎͈̹͎͔̙͈̮͇̅̾̈̇̎́̈͋̒̊̇̀͊̀̐͛͑̈́̽̄̎̒͛͑͜͝͠ͅͅŗ̷̨̩̞̬̻̜͉̞͈͓͚̬̭͔̼̳̮͎̖̲͇̜̳̜̱͙͔̒͊͗͒̈͐̽͂̃͆̿͑́̽̑̄̾̇̎̔̃͗́̂̔̄́͊̌̊͊͗̚̕͜͝͝ͅą̸̨̡̡̛͉͇̪͔̟̬̖͇̞̫̬̪͖̪̟̙̋͊͆̊͒̂̅̉̂͗͒̈́̏̓͊̅͒̊́́̋͜͝v̵̡̢̢̧̼̼̣̻̤̲̗̥̫̰̩̯͓͖̲̼̤̣͚̥͈̲̜͒͆̈́͊̿͌͆̾̈́̾̽̈͒̔͛͛̔̆̿̇̿̿̍̿̕̚͠e̸̹̱̖͚̮͈̹͕̣͕̭͗̈́̈̋̐͂̋̎̄͐̇͆̓͊͗̂͌͗͒̐̇̋̓̊̓͌͂̿̅́̒͒̈́͊̋̋̌̚͜͝͝͝l̷̙͎̪̫͍̾͊͑̎̒͒̈į̵̨̡̢̧̢͍̥̜̞̱̞̬̜̦̯̳̞̘̞͓̮̮͇̖̲̤̮̱̯̗̒̅̓̈́̂̈́̀͘ͅņ̸̧̢̧̛̥̬͓͍̥͉̼͉̮̙̬̺̩̭̥̭̤̟̹̭͇͎̻̭̻̤̰͖͍͈̺̩͖͎̯̑̆̍̅̐̃̃̌̿̌̐̓̓̏̔̅̚͜ḡ̵̢̡̢̨̯̣͇̱̻̟͓̭̱̝̩̱̩̪̦̠̩͎̘͖͇̦̳̟̣͑͊́͒͘͜ of Creation 6C6576656C.
It's like being hit in the head with a filing cabinet, what
See attached DOCUMENT #: 17967-8054-23-2113956 or r̸̢̟̍̔ẹ̶̟͌a̶̯̻̓̅ḏ̴̐ ̷̗͝͠t̴̘̐͠h̸̦̠̐e̷̢͉̊̽ ̸̰̎ṯ̴̋h̷̡̾̏r̸̯̳͝è̶͓͉ȁ̸̲d̶̩̕ ̵̻̔́w̸̯͛h̴̻͒͗e̶͖̾͝ř̵̝e̵̜̓̌ ̶͇̃i̷̢̩̅̄t̵̝͆͝ ̴̦̈́h̴̰̯̅à̵̻̉ṗ̷̛͙p̴̻̦͆͑e̴̞͑̍ņ̵́e̴̘͋ͅd̸̀͐ͅ for EXPLANATORY DETAILS
D̶̠̭̮̀̌Ǫ̶̒C̵̨͚͇͌̕U̶̢̦̍̈́̋M̴͍͇̒͑̽Ë̴͙̤̍̑N̴̢̬͈͠T̶̬͕̞̋̊ ̶̤̉ͅ#̸̡̊:̵̨̃ 17967-8054-32-2115499 Nethys Q̵̛̪̩̦̫̃̿̅̊̄̓̕̕̕T̶͖̙͙͉̬͎̬͙̝̖̈́̓̽̀̆̇̈́̇̈̊̿̄̈̅͋͐̎͊̿͜͠͝͠͝ę̷̢͓̞͕̯̗͙̮̫̩̭̞̠̜̠͍̥͚̳̣̺̲̞̱̏̏͌̊̅́͌̈́͒͑͗̽̒͛̉͌͐̈́͂̄̎̅̋̐͠͠ͅͅͅş̸̢̢̢̛̛̩̠̮͓͓̘̟̣̩̠͓͙̖̯̟̪͍͈̘̤̖͍̝͙͈̼͔͓́̈͋́͗͘̕ͅs̷̺̬͕͓̞͕͍̩̠̏̉̏̇̂͌̾̾̍̿͌̄͌̉̿̑̉́͑͗͛͗̍̂͋͘͝e̷̖̮͉̥̼̼̣̺̫̠̜̬͙͈̟͖͚͚̺̳̠̤̼̺͗̓̄͐̓͌̇͊̇͋͆̐͑͘͘͜ͅr̶̡̢̛̫̘̘͔͇͈̲͓͕̙͚̗͖̦͕̗͙̩̰̫̤͇͓͚͇̈́͒̾̆͒̄͗̓̀̽̽̐͋͑̈́̾̂͑̎̀̍͛́̈́̕͘͝͠͠ͅạ̸̫̮̮̟̞̭̰͖̾̿̅̀̚c̵̛̹̼̥͇͖̲͙̱͓̲͕̓͂̅̉͗̏̄͠ͅt̸̢̰̝̫̥̥̳̤̭͔͙̯̥̤͈͈̗̲͔̺͛̃̒̑͋̕ͅ
OTOLMENS: Would it not be SAFER to CONTAIN or DESTROY the anomalies?
NETHYS#̵͓͚̐͛͘͝1̶̣͇͗͋͝9̶͓͙̦̫͑̿̄0̵̗͖̱͍͛0̵̺͇̐̅͊̅0̵̧̥̩̀͌: I couldn't say for sure, but it's possible that if you do that Creation just ends.
NETHYS#̵͓͚̐͛͘͝1̶̣͇͗͋͝9̶͓͙̦̫͑̿̄0̵̗͖̱͍͛0̵̺͇̐̅͊̅0̵̧̥̩̀͌: 497420776F756C646E2774206E65636573736172696C79206665656C206C696B6520616E797468696E672066726F6D2074686520696E736964652C206275742054696D65206D6967687420637261776C20746F206120736C6F7720616E64207468656E2073746F7020666F72657665722E0A0A536F6D657468696E67206C696B6520746861742068617070656E732065766572792074696D65204920777269746520612074616721
Q̵̛̪̩̦̫̃̿̅̊̄̓̕̕̕T̶͖̙͙͉̬͎̬͙̝̖̈́̓̽̀̆̇̈́̇̈̊̿̄̈̅͋͐̎͊̿͜͠͝͠͝ę̷̢͓̞͕̯̗͙̮̫̩̭̞̠̜̠͍̥͚̳̣̺̲̞̱̏̏͌̊̅́͌̈́͒͑͗̽̒͛̉͌͐̈́͂̄̎̅̋̐͠͠ͅͅͅş̸̢̢̢̛̛̩̠̮͓͓̘̟̣̩̠͓͙̖̯̟̪͍͈̘̤̖͍̝͙͈̼͔͓́̈͋́͗͘̕ͅs̷̺̬͕͓̞͕͍̩̠̏̉̏̇̂͌̾̾̍̿͌̄͌̉̿̑̉́͑͗͛͗̍̂͋͘͝e̷̖̮͉̥̼̼̣̺̫̠̜̬͙͈̟͖͚͚̺̳̠̤̼̺͗̓̄͐̓͌̇͊̇͋͆̐͑͘͘͜ͅr̶̡̢̛̫̘̘͔͇͈̲͓͕̙͚̗͖̦͕̗͙̩̰̫̤͇͓͚͇̈́͒̾̆͒̄͗̓̀̽̽̐͋͑̈́̾̂͑̎̀̍͛́̈́̕͘͝͠͠ͅạ̸̫̮̮̟̞̭̰͖̾̿̅̀̚c̵̛̹̼̥͇͖̲͙̱͓̲͕̓͂̅̉͗̏̄͠ͅt̸̢̰̝̫̥̥̳̤̭͔͙̯̥̤͈͈̗̲͔̺͛̃̒̑͋̕ͅ: And more importantly, even if something happened to them they would just r̶̮͈̙͖̊͂̓̉͜ǫ̷̩̤̱̫̲̎l̸̨̹͔̟̠̯͗̚l̴̻͈͇̇̓̀ ̴̣̤̲͓͉͚͗̀ų̸̛̫̀̈̚p̵̡̞͖̮̻̾̃̽̍̕͠ ̵̬̳͚͖̉̃͠ņ̴̥̆̂̔͘e̶̟̝̰̭̊͘̕̚w̶̟̿͗́ ̵̡̮͎̣̈́̃͋̾̓c̴̳͓͖̯̈́ḧ̷̖͉̰́̔͑̍̾̌a̸̗͎̱͠r̵̘̱̻̍̿̄̿͛̆ȧ̵̼̳̖͉̭̃c̸̨͉͖̾̓ͅt̸̹̿̏̇e̵͕̹̰͌͐͊̕r̵̡̟̹̺͎̀́̊̆̃͂s̶̡̻̠̭̓͝.
OTOLMENS: Otolmens is HIGHLY CONCERNED.
: Also, two of them are clerics. I bet their gods would take issue if you tried to squish them.
: I figure you're pretty much stuck with these guys.
DOCUMENT #: 17967-8054-23-2113956
4D6F7274616C73 are 6861726420666F7220486572 to understand, but THIS 6D6F7274616C has the ^#^f&@&@^%^#&$@)&&^!&( of &$^*^(^e^b^(^e^&.
HOWEVER.
4163726F737320746865 multiverse 616E64 all of time, 4F746F6C6D656E73 6861732068616420766572792C very few clerics. Zero inquisitors. 416E64 zero paladins.
536865 never previously had any reason to pay the distinctions any mind, 616E64207368652773 not sure 536865 entirely gets what the tradeoffs are supposed to be.
$^$f%@%$%%$e$!%$$%$c%(, Otolmens 6F7065726174657320$^%@$%$%$c%(206163726F737320%#$%%^$%%@$!$c206F662074686520$%%#%$$!$@$c$(%#$*$%$$20$d$%%$$!$c$!%($%%@%#, 616E642063616E probe 77686174204B726F6674206973207468696E6B696E6720696E2061 NON-DESTRUCTIVE 6D616E6E6572.
OTOLMENS: I am CONCERNED that your CHOSEN MORTALS will cause the END of the WORLD as we KNOW it.
CAYDEN CAILEAN: You worry too much, Otolmens, he's just a little guy.
RAGATHIEL: It's my sincere hope She does.
Ȉ̴͎͖̈̅̍t̷͕̋e̶̪̼̻̋̀m̵͇͋ ̷̩̘̞͝#̷̖͆͒̆:̵̣͘ͅ ̸̨̏̋█̴̗̺͉̾͆́̐█̷̧̺̌̆͐̔█̶͎͎̈́̀͌-̶͓̈͘1̷̣̙̗̄8̷̯̇̕0̷͎̹͑͛3̷͉͓̱̉̄́̀9̴͕̖̺̅
̶͙̯̘̝̄͂
̴͉̏̓Õ̷̧͔͓̭b̵̘̬̗̮̌͂j̷͔̼͒e̷̯͆͝ć̷̭ṭ̸̺͖̽͌̈́ ̶͍̩̥̀̇͊͝ͅÇ̵̢̡̐͘l̶̻͙͉̓͂̈́ǎ̵̞s̶͎̺̈̌͝ͅṣ̵̞͇͇̀͆͋:̵̙͙̔͜ ̵̧̯̈́Ụ̷͠ñ̸̮̖̑͆̈́c̶̝̲̒́̋͝o̴͉̎n̴̮̤͈̾͊͝t̸̮͌́ä̸̬́̈́̔ȋ̶̝̺̃͋̒͜͜n̶̡̳͚͎͗͑e̵̬̲̓̔̀ͅͅd̴̜̮̱͓̋̕Special Containment Procedures: █̴̗̺͉̾͆́̐█̷̧̺̌̆͐̔█̶͎͎̈́̀͌-̶͓̈͘1̷̣̙̗̄8̷̯̇̕0̷͎̹͑͛3̷͉͓̱̉̄́̀9̴͕̖̺̅ cannot be contained at this time, and should instead be closely monitored by Fivefold staff. For decision-theoretic reasons, the Fivefold monitor must not use any information derived through this intervention to attempt the containment or decommission of █̴̗̺͉̾͆́̐█̷̧̺̌̆͐̔█̶͎͎̈́̀͌-̶͓̈͘1̷̣̙̗̄8̷̯̇̕0̷͎̹͑͛3̷͉͓̱̉̄́̀9̴͕̖̺̅.
Description: █̴̗̺͉̾͆́̐█̷̧̺̌̆͐̔█̶͎͎̈́̀͌-̶͓̈͘1̷̣̙̗̄8̷̯̇̕0̷͎̹͑͛3̷͉͓̱̉̄́̀9̴͕̖̺̅ takes the form of four anomalous entities,
Ḑ̸͑̍̕O̸̞͖͕̙̿Ç̶̯̦͔̓̽̎Ư̴̞̯̯̲̿M̵̖̑Ę̵̅͆̆N̴̫̬̰͂T̷̡͂̋ ̸̡͕̣͚̰̣͂̄̚͝#̶̣͒̀̉́̚:̷̮͇̬́͐̋͠ 17967-8054-32-2115476 Addendum: S̵̢̢̖͖͉̹͍̜̺̲̞̮͇̻̞̫͓̳̬͎̟͙̞̪͎͎̬̖̙̯̰̥̠͓͓͇̪͍̞̩̣̰͉̺̣͛̈͛̋̔̅̈́̆̽̍̈̌͂̿͊̄̌̏̐̍̔̂̿̾̐͒͂̅̉̈́̓͆̽̇̔́͆́̒̒͌̕̕͜͝ở̶̺̣̪̱̫̰͙͓̘̤̠̣͓̱̞̫͔́̈́́̈͝ͅo̶͎͈̭͓̲̺̳̟̰̩̬̝͇̣̜̔͛͊̈́́́̓̋̅̒̆̈̎͛̀̓̊̀̓̚̕̚͜͠ṋ̵̡̢̨̡̼̪̫̱͚̳̫̘͎͕̝̹͕͚̥̜͈̩͊͑͆̂͐͆̓͗̎̇͊͒̇͐̅̾̓͊͗̊͋̃̽̓̈͘̚͝
49207468696E6B2069742773206C696B652C2074686572652773 four of them, and 746865792027636F696E636964656E74616C6C7927206861766520686164206C69766573207468617420736861706564207468656972206D696E647320746F207468652065786163742073746174652074686579276420626520696E2069662061637475616C6C7920746865792077657265206265696E672070696C6F74656420627920657874726164696D656E73696F6E616C206265696E67732E20416E642E205568686820746865792772652070726F6261626C79 going to make l̵̢̳̯̯̱̜̃e̶̢̢̨̧̧͚̭̞̮͓̞͉̩̱̥̠̜̠͕͔̘̫̦̥͔̒̽̀̾͒̇̌̈̒͋̋̇̈́̌͋̊̈́̆̆̈́͆̀̂̇͐̀͊͂̀̂͐̍̿̾̀̏͝͠ͅv̷̧̢̢̛̖̪̥̜͓̥̖̮̱͓̣̤͎̘̫̦̾̆̑̏̐̓̑͂͂͂̌̈́͋͗̓̐̊͋͌̂̔̊̉̈̌͛̉͊̄́̿̉̓͌̉̕̚͘̚͝͠e̷͚̣͋̔̆͛̓̐̌̑̄͋͂͌̒̀̏̂̑̈́͛̕̚̕͝l̶̨̡̠̤̻͓͈̗͖̣͇̩̻̣͕͖̋̅̀̊͋̈́̋̃̂̎̀͛̆̇̿̏͌͒̆͜͝ͅ ̵̧̗̪̦̟̲̿́̉͛̂̃̀̌̇̊̄̈̓͗́̾̂̓̊̄̽͂̍̎͛̌͛̑̈́̊̉̊̈́̈̽̀̿̊̈́̊͗̒͋̚͜͜2̸̡̡̧̨̢̛̛̛̛͉͔͉̯̻͙̭̯̟̬͖͔̲̳̳͙̪͙̻͕̦̝͈͉͔̯̭̥̙͙̠̪̦͍̯̘̹̈̔̈́̾͛̇͑̏͆͂͐̃̈́͗͐̅̒̈́̄͐̂́̌̓̊͌̄̀̍̌͂̄̈̍̚͜͜͠͝0̵̡̢̨͔͉̦̗̦̗̗̟̘̠͙̬͚̥͎̙̤͕̳̜̤̟̹̜̗̺͚̭͓̜̣̺̯̏͜ in like, 6 months 746F70732E20536F6D656F6E65 help me 6F757420686572652C2049276D206E6F74206578706C61696E696E6720697420766572792077656C6C.
The monitor should work with █̴̗̺͉̾͆́̐█̷̧̺̌̆͐̔█̶͎͎̈́̀͌-̶͓̈͘1̷̣̙̗̄8̷̯̇̕0̷͎̹͑͛3̷͉͓̱̉̄́̀9̴͕̖̺̅ to reach EQUILIBRIUM STATES held ACCEPTABLE by the Fivefold Calculus, Cayden Cailean, Ragathiel, , and █̴̗̺͉̾͆́̐█̷̧̺̌̆͐̔█̶͎͎̈́̀͌-̶͓̈͘1̷̣̙̗̄8̷̯̇̕0̷͎̹͑͛3̷͉͓̱̉̄́̀9̴͕̖̺̅ itself.
The MONITOR has COLLAPSED.
This is why you never waste buffs on the NPCs.
Did we see what knocked her down?
I'll take my delayed Initiative to run up and roll Heal... actually, no, I don't think I can make it there in thirty feet...
You can. Move diagonal like so.
She provokes an AoO that way -
Nah,
Not! From someone who hasn't acted in the combat yet, she doesn't.
...What Altronus said, but less vehemently.
Can I tell what's wrong with someone when I'm touching corners to their enlarged feet? And every other diagonal is supposed to take ten feet of movement, I know I'm not moving into her square but it still feels like I should maybe not count as adjacent -
You don't necessarily know that she fell that way, maybe she toppled backwards -
Unless the problem was with her feet -
Yes, yes, very good thinking - unless the problem was with her feet.
In which case she fell on her face.
I think we should roll die percentile to tell if she fell forward (01-40) backward (41-50) on her side facing away from Lyvina (51-75) or on her side facing towards her (75-00).
Look, you wanted to be adjacent. You're adjacent.
What's the prognosis, Doc?
Barry?
1d100 = 91!
Then I'll roll 1d20+9 = 27 for Heal to identify what's ailing her.
Cressida Kroft is breathing and has no visible injuries except (obviously) the one incurred by hitting her head while Large-sized, which really shouldn't matter to someone of her character level.
Since when does falling prone do damage?
I approve of this houserule.
She babbles to herself, and her eyes dart wildly beneath their lids, her limbs are seizing. She seems to be in pain, or deep in thought, or lost in delirium.
If I lean in can I catch what she's babbling?
"...five - fivethreesixeight - fivethreesix - five - F̸̧̫͕͖͘i̷̧̤̔̔̒̋v̶̮̀̍ë̸̝̞̠̗́͐͐f̵̬͔̗̬̀̽̚ơ̵͖͓͇̟̋l̶̥͉̯̊̓̀͛͜ḑ̷̬̹͋͊͒ - Fivefold filing cabinet, what? I need to - need to - ̴͉̏̓Õ̷̧͔͓̭b̵̘̬̗̮̌͂j̷͔̼͒e̷̯͆͝ć̷̭ṭ̸̺͖̽͌̈́ ̶͍̩̥̀̇͊͝ͅÇ̵̢̡̐͘l̶̻͙͉̓͂̈́ǎ̵̞s̶͎̺̈̌͝ͅṣ̵̞͇͇̀͆͋:̵̙͙̔͜ ̵̧̯̈́Ụ̷͠ñ̸̮̖̑͆̈́c̶̝̲̒́̋͝o̴͉̎n̴̮̤͈̾͊͝t̸̮͌́ä̸̬́̈́̔ȋ̶̝̺̃͋̒͜͜n̶̡̳͚͎͗͑e̵̬̲̓̔̀ͅͅd̴̜̮̱͓̋̕ but he's just a little guy..."
I did not previously know that those were noises you could make with a human throat.
Today has been educational on that front.
Maybe she's speaking in tongues.
If she were speaking in tongues, we'd know what she was saying!
Don't samsaran get comprehend languages as a racial spell-like ability?
Yeah, if they have eleven charisma. What do I look like to you, a sorcerer?
Point-buys are silly.
In your mystic past life, weren't you a summoner?
But it's not like summoners need enough charisma to cast spells.
It's bad enough that everyone's rolling 4d6 and dropping the lowest and rearranging their stats.
It fucks with verisimilitude.
Barry ran a game where he rolled stats for all the monsters.
I've heard the story.
You make it sound like I'm a freak alien.
Rolled their hitdice for hitpoints as well.
Because that's how it's supposed to be done.
Every creature in the bestiary tells you how many hitdice of what size to roll, and how much to add to the total, because the examples in the Bestiary are examples.
Conveniences.
But this game exists because we hated 4th edition. If you want to play without training wheels, no one's going to take your books away.
And I'm telling you it feels more authentic than you can possibly imagine.
It messes with the CR math.
A) the CR math is already borked, and B) it doesn't change a thing on average.
You can't average things like that! If your APL-minus-two ogre minion rolls 3s in all its stats, it doesn't really matter; it was going to be an easy fight and it was. But if it rolls all 18s, you've basically Advanced it - twice! On paper that's as bad as adding an entire extra ogre, you've literally doubled the difficulty of the encounter, and in practice it could be even worse!
And then when those lucky rolls land on something that was meant to be a hellish fight, like that goddamn planetar lich -
You weren't supposed to fight the planetar lich -
and it's the recipe for a TPK!
Which I would have hoped was obvious from "Planetar." and "Lich."
And "Planetar Lich."
I killed that stupid zombie angel.
Well, Arthur, there's actually this funny thing about liches that you might not have heard...
How do you know what an ogre's base Strength is, to know whether 18 would be an improvement? Or, uh, I guess 18 is always an improvement, but, like, how do you know that about 16?
Creatures in the Bestiary use an ability score array of three 10s and three 11s (because 3d6 averages 10.5).
Hence why when you add class levels to a monster the Bestiary says to modify their stats with +4/+4/+2/+2/+0/-2. It moves them to the 15 point-buy array (15 14 13 12 10 8) that's usually used for NPCs with PC class levels.
Racial bonuses in Pathfinder are always even numbers, so you know that if the total is an odd number it was one of the three elevens, and if it was an even it was one of three tens.
The example ogre in the Bestiary has 21 Strength, which is an odd number, and 8 Dex, which is even. So we know that ogres have a racial modifier of +10 Strength and -2 Dexterity.
Then you replace those 10s and 11s with the results of 3d6.
Wait, but shouldn't they have a bonus to a stat for every four hitdice they have? What if they used one of those to bump an eleven up to twelve, or a ten to eleven?
Racial hitdice don't give bonus stats -
It says in the Bestiary -
unless they're being added to an existing creature.
Or, another way to think of it is that the ogre's 4HD bonus is factored into their +10 Strength.
However you conceptualize it, the creatures you check will have three even stats and three odds, for three tens and three elevens.
Unless you're playing with Barry, who delights in killing his players.
I do delight in killing players, that is true.
Doc, is the patient stable?
If I lift one of her eyelids, does the pupil dilate?
Was that 27 for Heal meant to be your bare glance, or are you spending your standard action on a more thorough check?
Right right. If barely glancing doesn't show anything mundanely obvious, I'll spend my standard action on detect magic.
The Field Marshall is carrying a number of magic items, and is magically enlarged, but what you notice first and foremost are the overwhelming echoes of deity-level magic.
We're level three!
Am I Stunned?
Nah, being overwhelmed by a magic aura has no rules text to it. Ordinarily it'd feel fair here to lift the rules for overwhelming alignment auras, but rules are that the aura is supposed to already be dimmer than a faint aura "Lingering Aura: A magical aura lingers after its original source dissipates (in the case of a spell) or is destroyed (in the case of a magic item). If detect magic is cast and directed at such a location, the spell indicates an aura strength of dim (even weaker than a faint aura). How long the aura lingers at this dim level depends on its original power:" even if that dim aura is going to stick around for 1d6 = 3 days.
If you'd been looking directly at the spell-like ability when it was cast, now, that'd be a different story.
Ow.
I'll just sit here being eaten alive by thousands of spiders, this is fine.
What in the Hells was that?
He didn't even see that last punch coming, but now it's all just - stars.
If our friendly NPCs are being directly murdered by gods, I... don't know where this campaign is going or what we're supposed to do about it.
Um.
I also thought that was against the rules.
Does Lyvina have any ideas for what just happened? Knowledge (religion) says 1d20+11 = 15.
Lyvina thinks that it matches the description of a divinely granted vision, which is supposed to be fairly debilitating on the mortal's end of things.
That's...
Genius.
We know that visions are allowed by their treaties, because duh, so now that the gods are fighting they're using them as weapons!
You clerics should start praying too, so we're not the only side taking flak.
It could have been a friendly vision.
This was adversarially timed.
I'll shout that we're under attack by gods and she probably needs restoration or something, in my expert medical advice. Um. Expert opinion.
Did you hear that, boys?
It seems the gods are with us!
Brie Endrin: 1d20-1 = 12
Lord Arkona's attack was accompanied by the sound of twice-a-dozen chairs scooting back from the table and the sight of wizards winking out of view and Salgar Irevotnin's instantaneous forcesphere but Glorio was faster still
and men rushed in to pull him down and beat him
and people were moving and seeking each other out
and Ileosa's bodyguard pulled her through her falling clattering chair and away away from
and more wizards were casting and Arkona's retinue were on their feet taking defensive casting postures scanning the room for spellcasters looking his way while working their arts
it escalates very quickly as those reluctant to draw steel first were within heartbeats no longer the first and ferns and hands are thrown and so are naked blades
and none alive could track all the things which happened then -
(With an exception or four.)
- and her attention's mostly on the fighting nearest her while she draws her sword and makes a snap judgement where to stick it.
Jope Chantsmo is shouting "This isn't a show, folks! Clear out!" to some solly fronters and the sort-of runty one is shouting "what's your life worth, Queen's Dog?" and they're about to get into it and she and Jope go way back and he's outnumbered so she's got to back him up with an action readied to attack whoever he attacks.
but she was military, once, as is the Endrin family tradition, and she served under Cevil Palastus (a man who compensated for any weakness at tactics with twelve levels of fighter, an unruffled personality, and coffins enough to bury all as couldn't match his 12 BAB pace); she's used to hectic fights and from the corners of her eyes and ears notices
Cressida Kroft enlarged to nearly twelve feet tall
thousands and thousands of spiders
and Brie is an Endrin - possibly the Head of her House, depending on who survived up there - which means she needs to think five rounds ahead.
Decisions made in the course of rounds have repercussions for centuries.
There's a faction in favor of Glorio Arkona and/or Queen Ileosa (who've been yoked together by a common enemy) (a state of affairs she expects to last approximately as long as Toff Ornelos does). The people in this faction may or may not realize that at the end of this, if they win, they'll probably have to kick House Ornelos out of the Peerage Review or else throw out the Peerage Review or else strip rather a few Houses of Great status, any of which might require leaning on one of the remaining Arbiters.
There are people fighting for Queen Ileosa who would consider themselves Traditionalists, and don't realize what they're enabling... including, d'oh, Jope Chantsmo and her. Is it too late to take back that readied action?
Probably it is, it's already a stretch that she can think all of this in one six-second round.
And it's not like she can leave Jope hanging, after they fought together in Biston. And what would she tell his wife?
a horse and pony show
noise like splitting stone, the Caydenite with the halo at the epicenter of a growing pile of bodies
There's a faction in favor of Toff Ornelos, because they think that he is powerful enough to save them, or because he will give them the opportunity to cast down their enemies, or because they think that he'll win and they want to be on the winning side.
What happens if Toff Ornelos wins?
...Well, Lord Arkona dies, an Arkonan runner-up winds up in charge of their House, and the rule of law survives.
...The rule of law maybe survives, "We killed the city's most famous philanthropist and removed the Queen from power (or killed her/she died in the chaos leaving the throne in dispute, a dispute we can't turn to the Seneschal to resolve because the legitimacy of the Seneschal is in dispute and we can't turn to the Field Marshall to appoint a Seneschal because the legitimacy of the Field Marshall is in dispute)" might not go over entirely phenomenally.
giant Cressida Kroft reaching across the room to pluck a ruffian off her Spellmaster and she throws him on his back shouting "STAY ON THE GROUND" and takes off running and makes it six giant steps before falling down
a Guard wizard is running to check on her
Now that she's answered the question of who she wants to win (no one, she wishes this weren't happening, people will be writing books for centuries about the mistakes which were made last round, but Toff Ornelos if no one else), she can ask who she thinks will win.
...And how difficult a question that is really depends on the loyalties and inclinations of the room's other eighth-circle wizard.
the Guard wizard is shouting that the Field Marshall needs restoration (restoration like lesser restoration takes multiple rounds to cast and for obvious reason there is not a single potion of lesser restoration in the Vault)
and that Cressida Kroft was struck down by the gods, because she's evidentially gone hysterical
Togomor: 1d20+5 = 11
Ow.
Yet alone of all the wizards in this room with permanent arcane sight or permanent detect magic, CL 15 Togomor kept tight hold of his wits. If he doesn't work with divine-level magic on the regular, neither are the spells he weaves so very far away.
He's replaying that miraculous intervention in his mind, trying to learn from it what a wizard can.
At the same time, he'll cast quickened invisibility and get started on summon monster VI - they're sixth-circle spells, it's not like he could mess them up.
Rem Ornelos: 1d20+0 = 11
Queen Ileosa stands by her Field Marshall, 20-odd feet from the head of the table where they sat.
Where the wizard Togomor sat nearby her - the second most dangerous wizard in the mansion, and the biggest wild card, and where he still sits - invisibly - that is, unless Togomor moved.
But his seat hasn't been pushed out, yet, so.
Courage, old boy.
Rem Ornelos casts glitterdust at DC 14.
A 16 on the d20 certainly means she saves against blindness.
Ileosa rolls a 15 and saves.
Togomor saves, obviously (he rolled a 12, +16), but is now outlined in golden dust.
Some other people are also caught, and blinded by and large, but no one who has entered our narrative as yet or who so much as hoped to.
There's standing room only, but that doesn't mean that people are tripping over each other to pack themselves into the far corner of the room. And a ten foot radius circle just isn't all that big, all told - it fills maybe a twelfth of the conference room.
"Get the wizard!" bellows Rem Ornelos, pointing. "Interrupt that spell! He's a bleeder!"
Spellmaster Tavid Bromathan: 1d20+0 = 10
His three prepared spells aren't much use for this, nor particularly are his cantrips, so he'll draw a sword and move to stand over the fallen Field Marshall with an action readied for if anyone tries anything.
Choryon: 1d20+2 = 9!
Can I just exult in it finally being my turn for a moment?
Are -
Shhhh.
Exulting.
Ahhh.
This is nice.
Free action to enter Bloodrage.
I can't get to the glitterduster this turn, should I take position to defend the bloatmage?
Ready an action and an AoO for anyone who comes that way... yeah, I can see it.
And that's my turn!
Back I go to the minesweeper mines.
We'll fight a big stompy solo monster next and make it up to you.
Lord Valdur Bromathan's bodyguard: 1d20+0 = 8
As fighting breaks out and spells are slung, Carlos Bevery can't spare even a wince for the Queen and her bodyguard backed into the far corner of the room.
Carlos isn't half the fighter that Sabina Merrin is - very few people are - but his personal history looks less like "become smitten at first sight with going-on-seventeen Ileosa when she arrived in Korvosa, hatch the "tightly calculated plot" to enroll at Orisini Academy on the theory that if he became one of the best fighters in the city, and then joined the Korvosan Guard, and then rose meteorically through the ranks of the Guard, that he could catch the eye of the Queen, and the Queen would request his discharge from the Guard and assign him as a royal bodyguard, and accomplish all of this basically overnight from a starting position of absolutely nothing, which really goes to show the power of yandere obsession[1]" and more like "has spent nearly twenty years working as security for House Bromathan."
Which mostly plays to his and Valdur's advantage, he'd think, compared to Sabina's situation with her own charge.
And which is why instead of sitting near the head of the table, Valdur Bromathan is sitting near the door (if disconcertingly close to far too many spiders).
Carlos has three escape routes planned for once they leave the conference room - one is the most direct route to Lord Valdur Bromathan's quarters in the magnificent mansion, the second somewhat more circuitous, and if neither of those look safe to traverse they'll break for the exit and Vault beyond it.
Or five escape routes, if you account for (as Carlos has) the unlikely possibilities that Valdur wants to visit the kitchens or use a lavatory en route.
"Up you get, sir."
-
1. This is 100% Paizocanon.↩
Turtle: 1d20-3 = 8
Technically, since baleful polymorph functions as beast shape III, being turned into a Tiny turtle should increase his Dexterity score by 4, instead of reducing it to turtle-tier.
Which also means he gets a +2 bonus on Escape Artist checks, one of which he'll attempt right now, to wiggle free of Toff's entangling pocket.
1d20-3 = 15
Hey, why am I taking a -3 penalty? I should have a +2 bonus.
I should have made that check.
The rules say I made that check.
This isn't fair.
Delmore: 1d20-1 = 6
Master Orianna Delmore is dazed in her chair, the spell she was planning interrupted with sheer sensory overload, carpeted - literally carpeted - in thousands of spiders biting and biting every inch of her. They are in her clothing. They are in her mouth. They are injecting poison into her eyes.
Her Constitution score isn't shabby - she rolled twelve, and has age resistance - and she wears a Cloak. But as a class, wizards aren't great at Fortitude saves, and there are thousands of spiders pouring their hateful venom into her blood. Delmore needs to make a Fortitude save.
Fortitude: 1d20+6 = 7
She takes 1d2 = 1 Strength damage out of 3d6 = 7 total. She'll lose another 1d2 Strength every round until she makes that save.
This would be such a stupid way to die.
A hazard, she supposes, of phylactrocrastination.
Archbishop Ornher Reebs: 1d20+0 = 5
Reebs turns himself invisible.
(Most clerics don't get that spell, but our Archbishop has the Trickery domain.)
Tauk Par: 1d20+0 = 4
The truth is that "Lieutenant Vault Captain" Tauk Par has little affection for much of anyone in this room.
The Queen is literally a diabolist. Par doesn't think that everyone is keeping their eye on the ball, there.
Glorio Arkona is an Arkona. It's easy to be "philanthropic" when you're just returning what you stole from or extorted out of people.
Cressida Kroft is Queen of the Cops. When someone pushes someone else around, the Korvosan Guard promptly jumps in to "keep the peace" before anyone gets pushed back.
And he hates her brain-dead fandom even more than he hates her. So what if she killed a dragon? Was the dragon bothering anyone? By your own admission it wasn't? You think it's impressive that she killed a dragon specifically because it wasn't bothering anyone?
It's said the gods made the First World as a trial run, to test all their ideas and get the bad ones over with and out of the way.
Par assumes that you escaped from there.
And on a personal level he'll never forgive the Korvosan Guard for that night he spent in the drunk tank when he wasn't hurting anybody.
But he likes Rem Ornelos even less than he likes most of the people here.
And Toff Ornelos, gods. Came in here without a clue what'd already been covered, drug in a whole angry crowd to disrupt the meeting's agenda, looking to start a fight as if just in starting one they'd solve all their problems.
Here's the reality of being half-Shoanti in the city of Korvosa:
Glorio Arkona kicked someone who hadn't hit or threatened him, which is assault or battery or something. A Hellknight immediately pulled a sword and tried to behead him. Hellknights are paramilitary. If it's legal for a Hellknight, it's legal for Tauk Par.
In theory.
Rem Ornelos cast a spell on someone who hadn't hit or threatened him, which, again, is assault or battery or something.
But if Par pulled a sword and chopped off Rem's head... he suspects he'd face stiffer punishment than a Lord or Hellknight.
So he'll use just his fists, to start.
Arbiter Zenobia Zenderholm: 1d20+0 = 4
It wouldn't be accurate to say that Zenobia Zenderholm considers her options; she's operating on reflex.
(On rusty reflex; Zena quit active combat when she made fifth-circle decades ago. She's a staid Arbiter of Korvosa, now.)
Her spells were mostly prepared with the shadows in mind. (Her three prepared death wards are three of six death wards in the Vault.)
She does, however, have calm emotions, prepared for exactly this scenario. It seemed worth preparing one spell that could immediately end most fights.
However.
While she could cast calm emotions, and would have if she'd acted sooner in the round, if she cast it now, when battles have already been joined, someone who made the saving throw will just stab someone who didn't and end the effect for everyone.
Or she could Channel Positive Energy to heal everyone within 30 feet of her 5d6 health. If she were standing on the table in the center of the room, a thirty foot radius burst centered on her wouldn't reach the conference room's far walls. But it doesn't need to, since the walls haven't taken damage and if they had positive energy wouldn't do a thing for them anyway. Thirty feet from the center of the room would reach all of the seriously injured people.
Or would, if they were standing upright - people who are lying down within ~fifteen feet of the table would have full cover against a burst centered above it - but she can solve that problem by standing nearer to the side where the prone people are bleeding out.
No one has died yet. (Probably. She hasn't actually taken anyone's pulse, here.) It may not be too late.
Arbiter Zenderholm has a Travel Domain cleric's movespeed, so it's no trouble getting into position atop the furniture.
(Travel clerics get 50 feet per move, typically. The Domain increases your movement speed by 10, and gives you the power to ignore difficult terrain for a couple rounds per day, and then additionally grants access to the spell longstrider. (And then as you level up also grants fly, dimension door, and teleport. It's widely considered the best else nearly the best Domain a cleric can possibly take.))
She holds aloft her holy symbol, and a wave of golden light bursts from it, healing 5d6 = 17 points of damage.
"Shame on all of you!" she screams. "We are a nation of laws!"
oh COME ON!
I just finished killing that guy!
...Do I get double exp if I kill him again?
Oh hey hey! I'm at full health again!
Yeah, for however long that lasts. She just healed the guy who stabbed you!
Oh! Speaking of, I forgot to use Adoration last time I was attacked.
I'll keep that in mind for the next time he stabs me.
What's Adoration?
My domain power.
Wait, I thought you were Strength domain.
Strength domain, Ferocity subdomain.
So where are you getting Adoration from?
Clerics get two domains, generally?
And your other domain is Travel.
It in fact is not.
But Cayden Cailean grants Travel.
He's one of the gods that grants Travel.
Not all of the gods grant access to the Travel domain, but Cayden Cailean is one of the ones that do.
Cayden grants Travel.
He does, but I didn't take it. I took Strength (Ferocity) and Charm (Love).
But then how do you have a 30 foot move in medium armor?
Altronus, The Most High Arch Megapope of Korvosa (Primate of Varisia) was tasked with tending to a shrine in the heart of a Lawful city, when in the dead of night a mage's decree rudely woke him.
I'm not wearing armor.
...
I think you killed him, Barry. I think he's dead.
That's got to be worth a level.
I am going to ask you a question, Barry.
And I promise I will not be angry.
But I want you to honestly answer this question.
It would delight me, old chum, to satisfy your curiosity.
What was going through your mind when you chose, as your two domains, Strength (Ferocity) and Charm.
What was your logic.
Olin Mull is a lover and a fighter.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Valdur Bromathan: 1d20+0 = 4
• The twin-engine private pilot, upon suffering a partial engine malfunction, instantly shuts down one engine and feathers its propeller (turning the blades to minimize wind resistance), just as he was trained. He then struggles valiantly to reach the nearby runway, even as the plane makes a slow spiral turn into the ground. After the crash, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determines he shut down and feathered the propeller of the engine that was still functioning perfectly.
• A single-engine pilot, flying solo, is distracted by a terrifying banging sound. She investigates the noise, while forgetting the most important rule: "First, fly the plane." Her aircraft makes a smooth downward glide directly into a backyard barbecue party. The NTSB later discovers that the passenger door of the aircraft had been closed with the metal end of the unused passenger seat belt on the outside of the plane. The wind was whipping the buckle benignly against the sturdy metal side of the plane.
• A computer-software test subject spends the first seven minutes of the test, rather than carrying out the task she’s been asked to perform, slowly massaging the top of her mouse with her index finger. Later, she reports that her mouse at home has a ball in the top.
• A US President, informed that his nation is under attack, spends an equal number of minutes staring at his hands, listening to a Kindergarden teacher tell a story. Later, he reports he was afraid the children would be frightened if he left the room suddenly.
All of the people in these real events were perfectly normal. Their actions were neither “crazy,” nor “stupid,” nor “cowardly,” nor any of the other labels people who have never experienced this phenomenon love to heap upon those who do. Their actions were the simple and predictable result of panic, a perfectly normal human reaction.
- Panic! How it Works and What To Do About It, Bruce Tognazzini
"Up you get, sir."
It's a very good thing he has Carlos Bevery looking after him, because Lord Valdur Bromathan's Plan A was going to be hiding under the table, and "hiding under the table" confers no special proof against swarming arachnids.
Sebastia Jeggare: 1d20+1 = 3
Sebastia Jeggare is a cleric of Abadar, a Guard Chaplain, and maybe also Head of House Jeggare - certainly the acting Head of House Jeggare.
She hopes that this won't prove to be a conflict of interest.
The church of Abadar estimates that House Jeggare owns nearly a quarter of the privately held assets in Korvosa. Of the Great Houses, it is only arguably second to House Ornelos, and it didn't get there through nothing but Abadaran dealing.
Identity is complicated. When she was one Jeggare of many, Sebastia differentiated herself as maybe a standard deviation more Abadaran, and by a corresponding deviation less... Jeggare.
(She doesn't have a better word for it, but the one I'd use is "Orzhov.")
But there are fewer Jeggares than there were yesterday. There's a pressure on her to pick up the slack. She doesn't want to be the a weak link in the chain that fritters away her inheritance.
And it's not like Abadarism and Jeggarism are all that opposed, anyway.
House Jeggare dislikes Ileosa. For, uh, all the obvious reasons and then also for
Lands on the surface will be divided among you. If your landlord was eaten by a shadow, the home you are accustomed to living in will be awarded you and subtracted from your demesne. I think it would be a black mark of shame on the Crimson Throne if any veteran of the Vault survived the shadows and went back to renting.
and then also for some My Dead Relatives Owned The Property Which You Plan To Appropriate reasons.
Salgar Irevotnin is limp in his chair, even after Zenderholm's channel.
Magical healing heals nonlethal damage and lethal damage at the same time, so against someone who was knocked unconscious by unarmed strikes, it should be even more effective.
If Irevotnin is limp in his chair, it either means that he's dead, or, more likely, that the Channel rolled unluckily low, but a little more healing should hopefully do the trick.
(Unlike Altronus, Sebastia Jeggare doesn't know the results of the 5d6.)
The Guard Chaplain moves up to Irevotnin and casts cure light wounds on him, restoring 1d8+1 = 4 damage.
That's something like an eighth of the wizard's total hitpoints. It'd be enough to restore many humanoid (human)s to full health from 0 hp. Hopefully it's enough to get him back on his feet and casting.
Qualins Rachmirol: 1d20+1 = 2
Qualins Rachmirol is an adventurer, and a skilled one.
Adventurers like her don't own houses. They don't have servants. They try very very hard not to pay taxes. Adventurers tend to carry a rather significant fraction of their net worth on their person in the form of weapons and magic items. When choosing how to spend their marginal 2000gp, "equip an entire Watch Patrol with masterwork weapons" doesn't exist as an option to compare with "buy a +1 weapon because I deserve nice things."
(Instead the options to weigh look more like "enchant my armor and my shield with +1 enhancement bonuses for 1000 gp each, increasing my AC by 2 and decreasing my chance of taking any damage from an attack by ten percentage points, or enchant my weapon with +1, which increases my chance of hitting with an attack by (checks math, takes note that (comparatively) cheap 300gp masterwork weapons already give an enhancement bonus to hit and that enhancement bonuses don't stack...) precisely fuck all. And increases my damage per hit by 1. Just... increases it by one single point of damage." (No one ever buys a +1 weapon for 2000gp, they wait until they have 8000 saved and buy a +2 or equivalent. For rare emergencies where they desperately need to bypass DR magic or affect an incorporeal creature, they use a 50gp oil of magic weapon.))
Vault Colonel Qualins Rachmirol is neither the richest person in the room, nor the highest level.
But after Togomor (himself a solo operator), she probably is carrying the most magic swag.
Whichever side of the fight she joins will gain substantially thereby.
Rachmirol isn't a complete outsider to the City of Korvosa. But it's not where she was born or grew up. She's fond of the Korvosan Guard in general and Cressida Kroft in particular, both of whom take pains to treat adventurers right. If it were clear to her who knocked the Field Marshall down, that'd be the person she'd jump.
But it isn't clear, so she'll draw a magic sword and move to support Queen Ileosa and her little group of defenders.
Call it chivalry.
Ileosa called her pretty, so now she has to return the favor by keeping her from harm. Besides, (the Vault Colonel feels) the Queen's done a pretty good job so far. She seems to have her head on straight when she isn't flailingly trying to defend herself from one of her enemies.
Corbastia Lettice: 1d20+0 = 1
Corbastia Lettice does not have a Carlos Bevery in her life.
She crawls under the table.
Where Group Red is a loose coalition of [imperialists, authoritarians, traditionalists, the people who think they stand to gain from Toff Ornelos's preferred policies, people who are mostly just looking for a fight]
Where Group Blue is a loose coalition of [imperialists, traditionalists, reformers, people who think they stand to gain from Ileosa and Glorio's preferred policies, and people who are mostly just looking for a fight]
Group Yellow is a loose coalition of people who are mostly just looking for a fight.
I object to this characterization.
Group Yellow is, like any other, a loose coalition of imperialists, authoritarians, liberals, traditionalists, people who think they stand to gain from one set of policies or another, and very angry people who have nothing left to lose.
Group Yellow has a very simple collection small asks, just little things to take the edge off the very worst day of their lives.
Well, I'll hear them out, but I'm not making any promises.
The diabolist who murdered our King? We'd like to parade her corpse through the Vault.
Hm. The Field Marshall's in no condition to stop you and for my own part I'm inclined to call that reasonable.
Are there any complications?
The nobles and fat cats? Preferably they'd fall in line or go the same way.
Hmmm, that'd be tricky to arrange. Realistically, you're only going to get one of those or other.
No, I think we can swing it. We kill Ileosa first and then side with Arkona against Ornelos.
Wouldn't this leave you with, uh, no eighth-circle wizard to cast the spells you need?
We haven't thought that far ahead, but I'm sure we'll figure something out.
Maybe we'll pay off Togomor, or let Toff call himself King if he answers to a House of Commons and promises to cast the spells we want him to.
Or we could hire a wizard through the Pathfinder's Bag of Holding.
Or maybe after a few rounds to think (not all Korvosans can do it so implausibly fast) we'll swap to Blue or Red and play kingmaker.
We've got options, I'm saying. Lots of options.
And success and glory are proverbially in the advance.
Korvosa Group Initiative Yellow: 1d20+0 = 1
"What's your life worth, Queen's Dog?!" cries Nandu Oprea. "Quarrel, I'll back you," he tells Timotei Zindelo. Zindelo rushes forward, taking a penalty to hit for a bonus to his AC, to better withstand the combined powers of Jope Chantsmo and Brie Endrin. He is all the same pierced through, a wound which no Channeled Energy will mend. Strabo Salonicus cuts Jope as he moves to flank him (provoking an AoO). For the space of a moment it seems Chantsmo and Endrin can take all comers; but Nandu's subtle Sneak Attack introduces the married man to the mage's magnificent bloodstained floor. The two turn their attention to Brie Endrin.
The false Seneschal is trying to hide beneath the table. Tudino Damasippus catches her by the leg and drags her back out.
"Interrupt that spell! He's a bleeder!" shouts a wizard who'd know.
So Habino Remor (some kinds of heroes are lunkheads like me, who only do what they're told), second level warrior with 3d6 = 14 Con and 2d10+4 = 15 hp, charges Togomor in an attempt to interrupt it.
Much like the Primate of Varisia, he didn't sleep in armor and isn't wearing any.
1d20+7 = 25 1d8+6 = 13
1d20+7 = 13 1d8+6 = 14
That'll stop him in his tracks.
The bulk of Initiative Group Yellow, though, are going after Queen Ileosa.
She's protected by a giggly Group Blue-er, a 10th-level Fighter, and an 8th-level Cavalier.
Their highest-level character is 5th-level.
It'll be a slaughter, but it might tie Rachmirol and Merrin down for a round or three.
Portenus Gaskelinni: 1d20-4 = 1
If old one-armed Gaskelinni isn't Experienced, he is at least experienced.
An Experienced fighter like Sabina Merrin or Cressida Kroft would cut a swath through a horde of foemen and do so with style.
An experienced warrior would instead move to the fallen Field Marshall to see if there's something he can do to help get her on her feet.
"She keeps smelling salts in her Bag of Holding!" he barks at the useless new-meat wizards.
And thus pass six seconds in Korvosa.
Round 2
Apparently unwilling to share his table with a pontificating Arbiter Glorio Arkona wrestles Zenobia Zenderholm for her holy symbol
And Maralictor Briasus climbs atop the table which creaks beneath his armored weight and others follow behind him and others behind them and Lord Arkona's goons rain force and lightning on them all -
Sabina Merrin's keen falchion dehusks three red and white and slick-shining men
And Ileosa is scared and sick and has never in her life seen anything so phenomenal and wishes she had a better view and she sings a magic martial melody and when breathing deeply to project her voice the bodies smell to her like food and vampires must have so much fun
Maganrad Hestrigsen starts to cast a solid fog and remembers that he prepared anti-shadow spells instead except the Enchantment spells that are his specialty so he throws a suggestion at Glorio Arkona who makes the save and the roustabout from earlier gets him again and takes him to the ground -
Altronus and the Megapope are both engaged in melee and the Pope has Adoration and Altronus 20+ AC somehow but both are cut and there are three people and Altronus and can't get out of melee to fire his weapon or at least not if he wants to full attack but can get a flank if the Pope also repositions and Altronus melts one attacker with three spiked gauntlets and a pistol to whip but they both took damage here and non-Choryon characters are fragile at level three -
And Lyvina Mayyad moves to color spray Ileosa's attackers before more of them die because you're blowing right past their negative hitpoint buffers you're killing them stop killing people please
And the wizard or possibly the sorcerer who summoned the swarm earlier casts scorching ray on her from across the room and one hazard of pairing d6 hitdice with 11 CON is that 4d6 fire damage will blow right through them and leave you bleeding out at minus four -
And the hazard of pairing 3d6 = 7 hitdice with 3d6 = 13 Con is that Hasagi Choryon deals 1d8+6 = 14 points of damage but Lyvina needs the Pope's ministrations more -
And Corbastia Lettice screams and kicks and is dragged out from beneath the table and ("I've got the False Seneschal!") knelt on by a man trying to figure out what he ought to do now
And Ileosa tells Sabina that she needs to help Corbastia and Rachmirol says she's on it and they should both sit tight -
And nearly half a dozen other brawls rage besides -
And Oriana Delmore rolls a natural 2 for her Fortitude and takes another point of strength damage -
Archbishop Ornher Reebs casts vision of Hell and a fifty-foot radius is as large as a ten-foot is small so it fills nearly all of the conference room and the Archbishop cries that the worst torments of Hell await every one of them who spills Korvosan blood in its hour of pressing need -
And Togomor has to make a concentration check against DC 23 or lose the spell he's working on but that's fine he makes that even though he rolls a 7 and he summons 1d3 = 3 babaus
and instructs one in Abyssal to dispel the glitterdust which vexes him
and another flanks with Tauk Par and KO's Rem Ornelos with its claws
and the third sticks Toff's man Irevotnin with its spear
and with that nuisance and that threat both made unconscious, Togomor floats invisibly from his chair to the door
drawing as he does a pouch of plundered dust
which he spreads across the doorway as an early warning against Toff Ornelos's invisible and mind blanked return
and his familiar Pudgy Knuckles has turned itself invisible and retaken its true impish form
and the imp procures a staff of its master's design
containing deadly spells and subtle ones -
And one-armed Gaskelinni shoves Cressida Kroft's Bag of Holding into first-circle Spellmaster Bromathan because it'd be faster for a man with two arms to go through Kroft's bag of holding for her spirit of hartshorn and wave it under her nose which gives her a new saving throw to resist one effect which has her unconscious or staggered and 1d20+14 = 33 her eyes flutter open and she groans long and low -
Round 3
Reebs' words and vision of Hell proves effective at dissuading some from the fighting -
And Ileosa takes Rachmirol's vacant place defending their little corner of the room but it looks like no one who saved against Lyvina's color spray cares to run headlong into Sabina's falchion and that's a relief but also kind of disappointing -
Master Norva Allesain (Dean of Divination) is no longer stunned and picks herself off the ground and decides that dimension dooring into the next room over is what's tactically indicated
And wouldn't you know it but Master Julaei Cangi had the same idea
(Neither of them know it, though; they don't have see invisibility) -
And Pathfinder Savant Aram Zey is, if unusually sensible for someone who's gotten in enough trouble to make 6th-circle, at the end of the day still an adventurer, and he's going to boldly venture nearer those miraculously created or teleported resolute horses and huh that's interesting why are they wearing saddlebags -
And other brawls still rage, some of them uncomfortably close to the teeming mass of spiders -
And Glorio Arkona has hold of Zenobia Zenderholm's holy symbol and silver is a soft metal and he has 18 strength so he distorts the market with his bare hands and separates the supply curve from the demand
And casts both halves away
(Something something insert joke about price floors)
And it's only been eighteen seconds for him and I wouldn't say that he's gotten a hold of himself exactly but he is wondering how he managed to get himself into this mess and how he's going to get himself out of it and he glances about the room and remember how he has detect thoughts up and
Lyvina Mayyad is thinking ten miles a minute while unconscious bleeding out and that is flatly not how anything works what
(Altronus and Choryon failed their saves as well.)
There's no point in your running over here if you take two AoOs and go down, I've still got seven rounds of bleeding left,
If I don't at least stabilize you now who knows when I'll get the chance, something always comes up,
What's your bonus to Acrobatics / Adoration DC / remaining hitpoints?
+3, 15, 18.
You have +3 Dex? ...But of course you do, and that's why you have 14 AC with a buckler on.
If you're using Acrobatics, you can deny both opportunity attacks something like 25% of the time, deny one but not the other 40% of the time, and deny neither of them 60% of the time. (These are very rough estimates.)
Against your pathetic Armor Class,
You didn't say it was pathetic earlier, why's it suddenly pathetic now?
Earlier I thought you had -1 Dex and hide armor on!
Right, what I'm saying is that - it wasn't pathetic in your eyes because it showed potential for wearing better armor down the line, but, you just learned that my Dex modifier is four higher than you thought it was, so my AC has even more potential for -
Against your pathetic Armor Class, the weaker one makes half the attacks they attempt. The stronger one makes 75% of them.
(If you were wearing hides your AC would be 18, by the way, and the stronger one would miss on a ten.)
If I were wearing hides I'd take an armor check penalty to Acrobatics, and I wouldn't even have the movement to cure moderate Lyvina -
You would have the movement if you'd taken the Travel domain -
But then I wouldn't have Adoration!
You could swap out Strength (Ferocity)!
Let's say Adoration gives you a 70% chance of negating one attack.
If, at the end of this, only one attack hits you, you survive (unless it's a particularly unlucky confirmed critical). If both hit you, you've got like a 50% chance of going down; it depends on what they roll.
Put that together and your odds are, rough estimate, something like 93.25%.
I like those odds better than I like Lyvina's if we leave her there.
This is my own fault, I don't want to put all the rest of you at risk as well!
You can pay me back the next time I'm the one at fault and you're the one with the magic healing hands.
Yeah, you can pay him back next round, when someone confirms a juicy crit on him with a to-hit of 14.
After this fight I'm taking you shopping for armor.
But if the Pope goes down, that's both our healers, and Altronus is hurt, and we're leaving him with three people -
If I use total defense, even flanked their strongest fighter needs a sixteen or higher - hm, unless they Aid Another - no, I think it makes more sense to just try and take him out -
I've just got this awful apprehension that if we don't have any healers conscious this spirals into a TPK.
🤨
...Or a TPK minus Choryon.
A 3PK.
I'm at full health at 63 effective hitpoints and fast healing 4, I'll be fine unless they focus me.
If the Field Marshall carries smelling salts, common sense says she's got health pots too. If Barry goes down I'll just walk over there and grab one.
Do we have enough loot to pool for raise deads?
Barry should know, he's the treasurer.
We can't afford raise dead, but we can do reincarnations.
Don't any of you dare let that cheapskate reincarnate me.
I hope our squishy wizard has learned a lesson about dumping Strength and Dex and Rizz and Constitution?
I didn't dump constitution! Eleven is above-average for a samsaran.
Not for samsaran that survive to level four!
...But yes, I have learned my lesson... learned several lessons, most pertinently to never not have cover... and I'm really sorry about this.
Altronus, are you seriously lecturing Olivia about min-maxing?
Barry, I never min-max!
I only ever max.
Hm... Barry, after you heal me, if I'm up, I'll heal you back, I can turn a magic weapon into cure light wounds.
I'd rather you put your daily Channel Energy into stabilizing some of these people who'll die without it, and then if you took cover - Ileosa moved and at least she has a melee weapon, maybe you can hide in her old corner.
Let's see how much damage getting to her puts on you before we make decisions about who needs what healing.
Alright!
If we've got a plan, let's hop to it!
If it weren't for Uncanny Dodge, the Hellknight would have gotten him there.
What in the Nine Hells are those things?
And the Megapope of Korvosa rolls 1d20+3 = 22 Acrobatics and casts his healing spell unscathed -
And Lyvina channels energy for 1d6 = 5 healing to stabilize some injured and some of them wake up oops but uh they were going towards the light when they woke up in Reebs's Hell and rejoining the fight is not what's on their minds right now -
And for some reason there are two of Archbishop Ornher Reebs
abandoning the safety of invisibility
and they lay into Glorio Arkona with flanged and heavy maces
And Reebs is the first to draw a drop of Lord Arkona's blood -
And Togomor is casting defensive spells from a staff
and he orders his summoned fiends to hide
they'll be ready for Toff Ornelos
he knows exactly what he'll do -
And Master Orianna Delmore fails another Fortitude save, and takes another point of Strength damage, she has five points left -
She sits on the left-hand side of the table (as you enter the room), near the corner near the door. Toff and Irevotnin sat not far from her.
Arkona and all his pursuers fight on the table near her.
Altronus and his opponents do battle on left side of the table, but further away. (And even further beyond them is Ileosa's defensible corner.)
Carpeted, with swollen blind-groping fingers, swollen lips and swollen fumbling tongue, through gagging chitinous obstruction, the Dean of Necromancy casts, centered on herself, at CL 5, fireball -
- and waves of fire roll off of her
filling her fourth of the room with terrible heat
the fire reaches just across the width of the table
catching everyone that fights atop it
and twenty feet along the table's length
just barely reaching Altronus -
and all combustibles ignite
the floor and wall and ceiling and table burn like a pyre
the smoke is thick and choking
mundane clothing is burned off of everyone caught in the effect
with all their hair
and 5d6 = 17 points of their scorched flesh
(with a Reflex save for half) -
And Orianna Delmore is free of the spiders.
Does 1d20+9 = 16 save for half?
The DC is 19.
I'm unconscious and bleeding out.
Good thing the Megapope got out of there, lol.
Or we'd be down both our healers.
And Cressida Kroft makes her way unsteadily to her feet, and Qualins Rachmirol rescues Corbastia Lettice and someone casts another glitterdust for no reason known to Science and Guard Chaplain Jeggare would Channel Energy and stabilize the people downed by fireball but unfortunately she is one of them and thus pass another 12 seconds in Korvosa.
Cressida Kroft would be surprised to learn that there are people in the world who get divine vision-induced headaches frequently enough to have invented a term ("godheadaches") and a first-line treatment (delay pain).
Cressida Kroft would not be surprised to learn that these people do not treat their godheadaches with spirit of hartshorn.
Because.
Why in the world would you do that to someone you don't hate.
She wakes in a literal hellscape.
...A hellscape that has her Guardsmen in it, and which matches the contours of the room, which makes her think it's an illusion.
(Tavid and Gaskelinni are so tiny, it's kind of hilarious.)
(None of this feels real.)
(Is that possibly a sign of a wizard fucking with her head? Chase it down, why does none of this feel real?)
(Part of it is wooziness and disassociation from her splitting painful headache, in fact that's probably most of it, and the rest - the way her human thoughts and observations seem unacceptably vague and like she might as well ignore them the way she ignores the dancing lights behind her eyes as just random noise, the way her priorities and way of forming priorities seem trite after touching the goddess of keeping the world from being destroyed - she can handle later.)
(Someone once said to her that if you can speak with an angel and walk away from it without changing your life at all you're beyond all hope, and Kroft rejoined that if you can speak with a devil and walk away from it without changing your life at all you're beyond all rebuke, and she's had the thought before that extreme hardheadedness is probably easier to maintain than conditional hardheadedness, if you're more worried about the downside risk than the upside...)
(She feels details slipping from her already and she's going to deal with the combat encounter first but after that is the common-sense move here to try and fix those details in her mind (and write down what she can) or is the common sense move to try her hardest to forget them?)
A fireball detonates on the other side of the table, because it never rains save it pours.
It drops her Guard Chaplain.
"Yes/no can you prestidigitate a drawing compass?"
"Yes."
And he'll get started on casting the spell; Spellmaster Tavid Bromathan can't see the relevance of it, but the Field Marshall can, and that's enough for him.
"Devour the spider swarm's summoner, bind them to my service!" commands the Dean of Necromancy.
The six incorporeal shadows she'd kept concealed within her robes and Bag of Holding - harmed hardly at all by a CL 5 fireball - issue forth and feast upon the down and bleeding caster.
Who will rise again in 1d4 = 2 rounds.
"Stick a little ball where the pencil would go."
Round 4
It's mostly the spellcasters who are still fighting, the chaff having been largely cleared or cowed.
Salgar Irevotnin is (still) unconscious but (still) stable.
Heroic Julaei Cangi in the next room over casts fly on herself and moves to the door - because she heard a fireball through the wall and she's remembering that Master Delmore controls half the shadows barring the way into the Vault and it would be catastrophic if she died -
Maganrad Hestrigsen picks himself up again (his lamprey-like roustabout detached in the face of Reebs's vision of Hell), and considers the hazards of a career in law enforcement.
He's carrying a scroll of aqueous orb - the city pays wizards that can use those to carry them.
He gets started on fighting the fire.
Invisible Aram Zey of the Pathfinders investigates the miraculous horses' saddlebags, and -
Adventurers live by the law of "finders keepers."
Aram Zey is no thief. When he was ten years old he found a coin purse with a dozen Absalom crests in it, and went to some pains to find its proper owner.
But if there's a pretty jewel which lies unclaimed, he does think his claim as good as any other.
...Aram Zey has more than 20 Intelligence. He's aware, even if he wishes he weren't, that these horses and provisions all belong to the Field Marshall, who was hit by deity-level magic at nearly the same time that they appeared.
...Aram Zey has more than 20 Intelligence. He's objectively too smart to steal from a god.
Aram Zey is no thief. Aram Zey is no idiot.
But.
He's also never been tempted with five wish-grade diamonds before.
So maybe by the end of the day he'll have had to revise his self-estimation down to "Aram Zey is no petty thief" and "Aram Zey is no idiot - unless you tempt him with the wealth of a small nation".
Or maybe he'll pocket them for now and if someone asks he'll say he was only holding them to keep them safe.
Which, in fact, is the reason that he's holding them.
Probably.
- meanwhile -
FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK SHADOWS FUCK
Zenobia Zenderholm goes to pat her pockets - looking for the keys to her house - doorkeys are valid Abadaran holy symbols - but her flammable pockets were reduced to cinders around her much more resilient body, and any keys they once contained have been destroyed by the heat as surely as the coins she was carrying were fused into one undifferentiated lump by her feet.
The Guard Chaplain! Lady Jeggare will have a holy symbol around her neck...
...A holy symbol which will also have been melted by the fireball.
The Arbiter jumps down from the table and starts looking on the ground for the holy symbol that Glorio Arkona cast away in two separate halves.
"Kill the shadows!" shouts Samudra Arkona, who's third in command here after Glorio and Melyia, and you know what that sounds like a pretty good idea. Lord Arkona's guards get right on that; they're objectively a bigger threat than Maralictor Briasus or Archbishop Ornher Reebs.
Shadows have on average 19 hp. A CL 7 sorcerer's magic missile launches four missiles which combined do an average of 14 damage. (Force damage isn't halved against shadows, but it doesn't really need to be, since force spells don't do a lot of damage to begin with.)
Glorio Arkona was protected by four sorcerers with 7 CL; they can between them destroy on average three spherical shadows in a vacuum this round.
There are, alas, no spherical shadows to be found. Undead use Charisma to determine their hitpoints, and Charisma varies between individuals.
You've your choice of targets, and while to you they seem identical, each of them has a life and a story which brought them to this point:
Murennia Ahala (CE female shadow, woodworker) 3d6+4 = 20 Charisma, 3d8+15 = 33 hp
Tefsa Issaleb (CE female shadow, "stable master") 3d6+4 = 19 Charisma, 3d8+12 = 29 hp
Ichab Julus (CE male shadow, fisherman) 3d6+4 = 18 Charisma, 3d8+12 = 19 hp
Astria Serva (NE female shadow, maid) 3d6+4 = 12 Charisma, 3d8+3 = 19 hp
Cecco Cator (CE male shadow, Sable Company Marine) 3d6+4 = 11 Charisma, 3d8+0 = 21 hp
Taupir Tappo (NE male shadow, tailor) 3d6+4 = 16 Charisma, 3d8+9 = 22 hp
They choose to focus 1d6 = 1 Murennia Ahala, who probably isn't but might 1d6 = 1 wow, ok, snake eyes. They choose to focus Murennia Ahala, who takes most all their magic missiles to drop, and who happens to be the shadow as got the last hit in on our dead swarm summoner.
Which may become suddenly relevant six seconds from now.
Nirvana's been having a busy day.
Neutral Good's argument in the case of Murennia Ahala is that she was supernaturally compelled to do Evil, which is a substantially mitigating factor.
The court's argument for Chaotic Evil is that Murennia Ahala had to be supernaturally compelled to do less Evil than was her preference, leapt eagerly at the chance to do what Evil she was allowed, and that lack of opportunity does not a Good person make.
Nirvana's argument is that Murennia didn't choose to be someone who wanted to do Evil.
The argument for Chaotic Evil is that that's true for literally every Evil creature ever and the court affirms that no we aren't sending them all to Nirvana no matter how many times you ask.
Perception 1d20+19 = 20 did they... did they just destroy the shadow that created spawn? She can't tell for sure, but thinks that they very well may have.
Why did Delmore bring shadows into the room? Who was nuts enough to fireball her when they're all depending on her to hold the Vault? - was that the wizard Delmore set those shadows on?
She wants to tell Delmore to take her shadows and get the hell out of here. But the shadow Delmore just created needs instruction, if that's possible - she can't count on it being possible.
Random tenth level characters like Cressida Kroft aren't particularly advantaged to win against a single CR 3 shadow. Those things are terrifying.
(Against a shadow, which is immune most weapons and takes half damage from magic weapons, Kroft's average damage per swing with her commandeered +1 spellstoring longsword is ~8.7 out of 19 average hp. (Two-handing it with Power Attack; it's not like the shield would help her here.) And then if the shadow tags her for 3 Strength damage (it ignores her armor) (which is why she didn't bother putting it on this morning; why take the Armor Check Penalty?), Kroft's damage per swing drops to ~2.6 out of 19 average hp.
Ending up in melee with a shadow is the lose condition. Cressida Kroft is alive because she's avoided it so far; last night she was another archer - better at it than many but worse than the real specialists.)
She hastens towards the burning carnage (...which is emphatically not good for her headache, by the by), and orders "DELMORE, WITHDRAW YOUR SHADOWS. SAMUDRA, READY YOUR MEN TO DESTROY THE ONE SPAWNING IN."
(Of course she knows Samudra Arkona's name. She knows everyone's name. She'd like to also know his mother's maiden name and his favorite wine - for the file - but House Arkona keeps some secrets even from her.)
Stows her Quick Draw Shield while moving, and raises a hand to catch the thrown compass her Spellmaster was working on,
And mentally adds "go through the entire Vault and check everyone's pockets for shadows" to her to-do list right after "handle everything which urgently needs to be addressed in a matter of rounds".
It'll exaust their detect undead capacity, unless there's an alignment-detecting paladin or inquisitor in the Vault, which she knows for a fact that there... which she knows for a fact that there is.
(Cressida adds squeeing over having magic! to the to-do list somewhere after "die of old age.")
(But the very moment she's gotten that done, it'll be squee-o'clock.)
You seem to be laboring under some extreme misapprehensions vis a vis whether or not you're the boss of me.
I think we should cooperate with the police, Master Delmore.
They're only here to help.
Aren't shadows supposed to be Chaotic Evil? I think I'm a victim of false advertising.
You should report it to the Bureau of Weights and Measures! They can advise you on which steps to take next.
...You are without a doubt the most mild-mannered sin against Pharasma's Creation I have had the displeasure of working with to date.
I'm really sorry to hear that. If you tell me how I can improve, I can try to do better?
SHADOWS SHADOWS SHADOWS FUCK
....No, wait, this is good for her.
This is such a lucky fucking break.
Headmaster Ornelos's reputation took a hit after presiding over the fiasco with the Breaching Festival,
in the aftermath the Guard wanted to go through the Acadamae with a fine-toothed comb, account for every item and spell aura in the place, and Toff didn't have the cachet to refuse them.
And.
They found so many crimes.
Turns out the school that kills three-tenths of its students played fast and loose with safety regulations and informed consent and illegal spells and illegal uses of magic!
Who ever could have suspected this.
Would the city issue fewer citations after a raid of Arkona Manor?
Not important right now.
What's important right now is that I can and clearly should announce as royal diktat that all the shadows in the Vault need to be named and listed and randomly checked in on and what's important is that your Dean of Necromancy is the impetus for this and it'll remind everyone that you're incompetent in certain ways that count for a lot right now actually!
What's important right now is that I can tell the Archbishop and this lunatic Hellknight that they should leave me alone because dealing with the rogue shadow is more important and it'll be my spell or one of my people's spells that kills it!
This is how I get out of the fight without killing everyone in this room and without losing face!
I find the nearest half of Zenderholm's holy symbol and shout "I've got the half of your holy symbol!" to make it clear that I've got half of her holy symbol!
I say, "The shadow's more important, leave me be that I can cast on it!" to make it clear that I want to cast spells on the shadow!
We're sensible and useful people cleaning up after Toff Ornelos's messes!
We are!
If this somehow gets spun against her and in favor of House Arkona when House Arkona were the ones who freed the shadow in the first place Orianna Delmore is going to become the Joker.
...But I'll back you up on your version of the story and act publicly unrepentant and vaguely unhinged and if anyone calls me out on it I'll hysterically demand that Toff Ornelos delete them from existence in exchange for enough spellsilver to craft a lich's phylactery.
The guys discuss this turn of events and determine that even if the situation looks in-hand, there's no way a shadow gets free and they don't wind up fighting it.
Probably they'll have to fight all six.
Lyvina casts magic weapon on the Megapope's rapier, and the Megapope moves close enough to Altronus to Channel Energy and gets him back on his feet.
Choryon rendezvous with the Megapope to receive his casting of magic weapon next round.
Round 5
The shadow that spawns has 21 hp.
Glorio Arkona gets the final hit in.
Zenobia Zenderholm gets her holy symbol assembled, she's going as fast as she can,
Watch Sergeant Cressida Kroft lifts her compass and Channels Energy to stabilize the dying.
1d6 = 4 points of healing even gets some of the less injured (almost everyone who made their saving throw, or had 13 hitpoints going into the fireball) back on their feet.
...That's new.
Arbiter Zenderholm follows it up with a much meatier 5d6 = 16 channel.
Those who survived the fireball are mostly back to full health, if minus their hair, clothes, and equipment.
The Field Marshall stands nigh-on twelve feet tall, surrounded by the hellscape overlaid atop the smoking ruins of the magnificent meeting room, a room strewn with corpses charred and otherwise.
They lost seven people today. Eight if you count Delmore's bound shadow, which most do not.
The Field Marshall holds an unfamiliar holy symbol, through which she Channeled Energy - from afar it looks like a nutcracker or maybe a drawing compass.
She's staring them down with weary eyes.
"This is over now."
Her voice brooks no dissent.
Round 6
Four erinyes devils fly into the room.
Why to skip the "all powerful" Save or Die spells:
Yes, Save or Die is powerful, we've all heard why (who cares how many HP the monster has? If they fail their save, the fight is over) - however, it is overrated. This is why:
Lots of enemies: You take down one and do little else to help your Big Stupid Fighter and Glass Cannon. You spent a high level spell doing so. Congratulations - you've been demoted from God to Glass Cannon. Ouch!
One Big Enemy: You either do nothing or everything. The Big Stupid Fighter and Glass Cannon are either in lots of trouble or are feeling useless. This is like the chess player who is addicted to using his queen - ends up losing it, and then sucks for the rest of the game. Use your lesser pieces (That's the big stupid fighter and the glass cannon - your peons) to your advantage - let them do the dirty work - your job is to make it easy for them, not to take their place. Try to take their place your spells will run out fast. Besides, you are a team, enjoy the benefits of that.
By Yourself: Now in this rare circumstance - save or dies are actually quite good. However - avoid this situation like the plague. If you choose to test your "phenomenal cosmic power" by going out alone, then YOU are the Big Stupid Fighter, except you aren't Big, you aren't a Fighter, and you're not....well, that's it pretty much.
Wizards in this version of Golarion prep more Save or Die than you'll find advised by the Pathfinder char-op community.
It's not that the author disagrees with the char-op consensus, nor that they write wizards too dumb to come to the same convergent answers. For example, wizards in this Golarion use less evocation than in Paizo's Golarion (where most statted wizards are evokers), or Glowlarion-broadly-construed (where chain lightning is a spell that people ever cast).
Their reason for casting Save or Die spells are threefold: they're more likely to find themselves By Themself without a Thief, Fighter, and Cleric in tow; they're less likely to need to pace themselves for an adventuring day; and they don't typically care in the slightest about outshining the rest of the party.
Non-Lyvina Mayyad wizards on Golarion are playing for keeps on a level that most Pathfinder Guides will gently suggest you avoid.
But this only extends to the spells they prepare and how they cast them; unlike Player Characters they don't get to allocate their stats or decide on their feats with the sourcebooks open in front of them. Toff Ornelos had 17 starting INT, Togomor 15.
Toff Ornelos doesn't have Persistent Spell or Spell Perfection.
His rival Togomor's trap the soul is considered impressively irresistible theseaparts - Altronus would call DC 32 rookie numbers, and he'd be right, but it all the same makes some demigods nervous. (Even with his higher INT Toff can't top it.)
Wizards like their Save or Die spells. They're slot-efficient. You cast one spell and you're done. If you know which their weak save is, the odds are in your favor.
But when the going gets tough enough - when they're fighting something that's on paper outside their weight class, with no weaknesses or none they know, like when the Tarrasque shows up and a local 7th-circle has to get rid of it again - a wizard may choose to set aside their Save or Die.
The truth about Pathfinder is that a powerful cleric or wizard can, if prepared, kill absolutely anything at least one time per day, and they don't have to give you a save about it unless they're feeling polite.
Toff doesn't know what Glorio Arkona's saving throws are.
The damage Glorio dealt with one attack implies that he's fairly high level. Toff saw him dodge Salgar's resilient sphere, and Maganrad's dominate person.
So let's assume that Glorio Arkona's defenses are impenetrable.
The first Erinyes uses its fear spell-like ability on Glorio.
Glorio makes the Will save, and is not Panicked.
Fear has a partial effect on a successful save.
Glorio Arkona is now Shaken for one round.
(What Toff Ornelos doesn't know is that Glorio Arkona has Spell Resistance. There are magic items which will give you Spell Resistance, but they're expensive, and they don't give you a lot of it. (A 90,000 gp Mantle of Spell Resistance gives you all of SR 21, which wouldn't block a spell from Toff Ornelos if he rolled a 2 on the 1d20.) And then Spell Resistance is a dangerously double-edged defense - it's much more likely to block the low level wand or cleric that's trying to save your life with magic healing than it is to block the high caster-level spells that I presume it is have you worried when you shell out 90,000 gp for SR 21. So Toff isn't thinking of Spell Resistance as a thing to worry about here.)
(Glorio doesn't have a lot of SR - only 25 - but it does mean that this strategy isn't the surefire way to off him that Toff Ornelos is assuming.)
The second Erinyes uses its fear spell-like ability on Glorio.
Glorio makes the Will save, and is not Panicked.
Fear has a partial effect on a successful save.
Glorio Arkona is now Shaken for one round.
He was already Shaken for this round.
Fear effects are cumulative.
Glorio Arkona is now Frightened.
Fear effects are cumulative. A shaken character who is made shaken again becomes frightened, and a shaken character who is made frightened becomes panicked instead. A frightened character who is made shaken or frightened becomes panicked instead.
(But actually, that one failed against Glorio's SR.)
The third Erinyes uses its fear spell-like ability on Glorio.
Glorio makes the Will save, and is not Panicked.
Fear has a partial effect on a successful save.
Glorio Arkona is now Shaken for one round.
He was already Frightened for this round.
Fear effects are cumulative.
Glorio Arkona is now Panicked.
(His Spell Resistance turns that one back as well.)
The fourth Erinyes uses its fear spell-like ability on Glorio.
It hardly seems necessary, but he happened to roll for four summoned erinyes, and he may as well use them all. Call it redundancy.
(Glorio failed his saving throw against this one and is in fact Panicked.)
Characters who are panicked are shaken, and they run away from the source of their fear as quickly as they can, dropping whatever they are holding. Other than running away from the source, their paths are random. They flee from all other dangers that confront them rather than facing those dangers. Once they are out of sight (or hearing) of any source of danger, they can act as they want. Panicked characters cower if they are prevented from fleeing.
Run.
He runs.
Oh, but what is this? It seems that as you exit the conference room, you pass through a major image.
Only now that you have interacted with the illusion, are you permitted a save.
No one in the room knows what is happening to you now.
Concealed by the illusion was a wall of ice to your left-hand side.
And an osyluth standing to the right. A Bone Devil. That's a threat. A panicked creature runs from threats.
Across the way, a door is open.
You must go through that door.
He goes through the door.
Behind the door is an elaborate box of sculpted stone.
Something like an igloo, if igloos were made of stone and came with tenuously attached portcullises.
There is nowhere else to go.
With Boots of Speed-enhanced alacrity, he makes it inside the igloo.
He cowers in the far corner.
Toff Ornelos is paid by the month to carry a scroll of control water, as he's among the city's wizards who can cast from it.
It is not so great a sum of money that he finds himself loathe to now expend that resource.
From the strategic saucer he'd left for the purpose, turbulent water fills the igloo in its entirety.
A second osyluth, waiting invisibly within the igloo, breaks a thin band of stone and slams the portcullis shut.
The osyluth will attack now, underwater and in the dark.
An invisible servant closes the door on the whole stone contraption.
Drown.
There's nothing else that he can do.
Uh, what was that?
Probably we should fight the invading devils?
Togomor has permanent arcane sight; he noticed the illusion outside the door, saved against it, and has been watching Toff Ornelos's summons arrange the trap.
He didn't take the bait.
But now, with that scroll-cast control water... control water can be cast from a scroll at a distance of 840 feet. In the great outdoors, it wouldn't tell him where he could locate Toff Ornelos.
But they aren't in the great outdoors. They're inside Togomor's magnificent mansion.
Toff Ornelos needs to have had line of effect to his saucer. He can have flown up to 60 feet away from where he cast the spell. There are only so many places in the mansion where he could possibly be.
Or run from them?
Or deduce six seconds too late that they must have been summoned by Toff Ornelos?
Glitterdust has a diameter of twenty feet. The odds of catching Toff Ornelos with it in the spacious hall are basically nil. Fortunately for Togomor's purposes, freezing sphere has a diameter of eighty feet.
Which is pretty good, at least indoors. And 11d6 cold damage is a nice-enough perk.
His imp Pudgy Knuckles casts freezing sphere from the staff Togomor crafted him...
...Flash-freezing the moisture in the humid air and coating invisible Toff Ornelos in a hearty layer of frost from the hem of his robes to the tip of his pointy wizard hat.
(Of course he wears a hat - character art aside - he is a wizard, after all. The hat is a cone of solid steel which he cast shrink item on to reduce to a fraction of its size. When Toff Ornelos is caught in an antimagic field, the hat returns to its original size, a metal tent which surrounds him and breaks the line of effect. Then, from within his little bubble of not-antimagic-field, while his foes try to find a way to break or bypass the heavy steel without using magic, Toff Ornelos teleports away.)
Toff had rounds to buff. That means he's wearing spell turning. Trap the soul or flesh to stone would be too risky here.
Togomor casts aqueous orb beneath where Toff is flying and quickened dispel magic on the wizard's hat.
To provide a verbal component, you must be able to speak in a strong voice. A silence spell or a gag spoils the incantation (and thus the spell).
Drown~
Silent teleport.
And now the game is truly afoot!
He hopes he wins this round; Toff always carries good loot.
Dimension door.
Any character can hold her breath for a number of rounds equal to twice her Constitution score. If a character takes a standard or full-round action, the remaining duration that the character can hold her breath is reduced by 1 round. After this period of time, the character must make a DC 10 Constitution check every round in order to continue holding her breath. Each round, the DC increases by 1.
Among the things Toff Ornelos doesn't know about Glorio Arkona is that he has 26 Constitution.
In Toff's defense, this is not at all a normal amount of Constitution for a person to have.
He can hold his breath for a touch over five minutes before he even starts to sweat. Or, if he's spending his actions evading the osyluth and trying to find or force a way out of his stone prison, two and a half minutes. (He could totally kill an osyluth, even without sneak attack, even underwater where his weapons deal half damage. It'd just take forever, and what little damage it deals him isn't worth the time.) Even after that he'll likely last a minute or two before failing the Fortitude save and drowning proper.
Stone has Hardness 8 and slashing weapons do half damage underwater. His enchanted knife can't chip it. He can't get out of this on his own.
...But she'd just gotten everyone to stop fighting.
Lord Arkona's retinue are going to try and locate and rescue him.
He's behind a major image and a closed door and a dome of solid stone. There are four erinyes devils and an osyluth playing goalie.
You are, however, welcome to try.
He knows it's a personal failing, but all the same can't kill an APL+5 erinyes at level 3, let alone four of them.
If he had more guns, maybe.
Hey! Before you go rushing out, I need you here for this!
Royal decree. From now on, anyone who is controlling a shadow needs to wear robes with black and yellow stripes. I know that goes at least for Master Delmore and Archbishop Reebs. Reebs, get someone to prestidigitate them for you.
Anyone who attacks anyone wearing those robes will be fed to the shadows guarding the door.
In the long run, by which I mean in an hour from now, all the shadows in the Vault need to be named and listed on paper along with their locations and randomly checked in on and all shadows need to be positioned so that bound ones can restrain any which are suddenly freed and I'll work out the exact details in a moment and go over it with the Arbiters for constitutionality but right now I need every shadow in this room sealed inside a Bag of Holding.
Cool beans. Not sure what it has to do with us, though, so we're going to go find Lord Arkona now...?
Lord Arkona would want you to stay until I dismiss you!
Be reasonable! I want enough shadows outside the Bag to kill anyone who I want killed in a hurry.
No! NO.
What if someone'd cast a greater dispel in here? They'd all have gotten loose.
What in the Pit were you thinking??
Put all your shadows in the damn Bag of Holding.
Ah. So you want us here as muscle, in case the necromancer doesn't comply.
Hm, I'm prestidigating those stripey robes right now... oh, look at that! No one's allowed to attack me anymore~.
So fuck off, Whore-Queen.
People keep saying that and I really wish they wouldn't. It's a horrib - UH - it's a, terrible, it's quite frankly just an extremely rude thing to call a person!
Are any of the shadows you have with you in command of a shadow that you don't have with you?
She's not stupid. All six shadows answered to the same progenitor, who's safely far away from her.
Put them in the bag, or we destroy them.
Is that a threat? I'll have you know that I don't give in to threats.
It is NOT a threat.
I haven't even started with the threats yet, wizard.
Master Delmore, we'll reimburse you later. You can name your price under truthtelling or fairness.
For now please put the shadows in the Bag of Holding.
In that case she'll start rehearsing reasons why they should pay her a lot of money for this while she Bags the shadows.
Truthtelling is fairly robust to that kind of willing self-deception, and fairness moreso, but neither are perfect.
In that case, Glorio Arkona's retinue are going to try and rescue him!
They hope it isn't too late!
Cangi will continue to lurk invisibly by Orianna Delmore, ready to defeat attacks.
They're not out of the woods yet, not while there are still shadows which answer to her blocking the way into Vault.
The 400ish people living in this mansion collapse into a pile of confusion and writhing limbs, to be immediately drenched with water and crushed with stone, and the water disappears when the antimagic field snaps into place around them, to be replaced with various shunken objects and fires growing to full size and the shrunken flame drake lymph that Togomor spread inside the mansion detonating inside the pile like a firecracker in an anthill and killing everyone without a whole heap of hitdice or - more likely - someone between themself and the blast.
Toff Ornelos struggles to extricate himself, tries find his feet minus his Belt of Constitution and age resistance, he's taken something like 20d6 damage today from assorted Sneak Attacks, freezing spheres, and falling objects,
and is knocked back to the ground by a younger stronger angrier man,
and stung by Pudgy Knuckles and also Togomor stands on his throat.
That was fun!
Four hundred Korvosans, an igloo made of several thousand pounds of sculpted stone, a variety of summoned creatures, and two horses were all ejected into one five-foot square.
There wasn't enough room for all of them, so some people got jostled around pretty good there.
Those with good Reflex saves or Acrobatics had the chance to get out of the pile the while it was growing - or at least on top or near the top of it.
As, of course, did those with magical flight.
If we assume each person rests on four people, that's pyramid with four levels and a base of 200ish people. Assume two base-level people to each five-foot square, and that's a one hundred five-foot squares, which would fit into a fifty-foot square - discounting the people displaced by the igloo - before people extricating themselves from the edges and the detonating flame drake lymph spread the pile further out. (In practice it does not look like anything as orderly as a pyramid.)
Antimagic field fills a sphere with a 20-foot diameter. A sphere is a kind of circle, and a circle is a kind of square, from which we can calculate that the antimagic field covered about a fourth of the pile, or less - as it was centered near the edge where Togomor found fleeing Toff Ornelos. (This also means that only a fraction of the shrunken flame drake lymph detonated, for which dozens or hundreds of people owe their lives.)
Clerics hie to the carnage. Most of the worst injured have Korvoan cover too thick to penetrate with the first round of channeled energy.
Wasting no time, doughty Korvosans begin disassembling the pile - dragging away the injured and dead.
When the injured have been stabilized and the dead counted, there will be forty fewer Korvosans in the Vault.
Including at least one person who was commanding a shadow guarding the way into the Vault, oops.
Considering the distracting commotion, it might be a few minutes before -
Actually there's a wizard in the Vault who's job it is to stand near the doorway and stoneshape it shut if his senses report a distracting commotion of any stripe, and then stand near the door ready to cast command undead if any shadows make it through anyway, and raise an alarm if this seems in his best judgement like there's a 1% chance of it being insuficient, and another weaker wizard assigned to conceal them both with a silent image, and both of them with orders not to help in any way or even pay the slightest mind to any commotion which might possibly distract other people.
The door is stoppered before any of the shadows themselves realize that they're newly free.
Salgar Irevotnin wakes up in his clone.
It seems like one of the people within that quarter of the heap under the effect of an antimagic field has her hands on backwards and a fox's head.
Did anyone notice that?
I may have 7 INT, but that's INT enough to keep Perception maxed.
Also, there are over a hundred people who ought to get a roll.
That's unfortunate.
Is there anyone who saw and who also knows what it means?
Which Knowledge skill would that be?
Not that it super matters, since I have ranks in all of them.
Of course he has a clone - he's an important man. He's the Dean of Evocation at the Acadamae of Korvosa.
But this raises the question.
Where are all the other important people's clones?
Golarion, as written by its creators, is straightforwardly not a setting where clones exist and important people have them.
It takes Toff Ornelos ten minutes and 1,000 gp to create a clone for someone.
If important people in Korvosa had clones, how in The Curse of the Crimson Throne does Ileosa poison her husband to inherit the kingdom? He should have woken up in his clone.
(Setting aside how he could have been recalled to life after the fact with other spells.)
Why does it say in Cheliax, Empire of Devils that Carellia Thrune accidentally drowned and left her cousin Infrexus Thrune to inherit that kingdom? She should have woken up in her clone.
And how in his turn did Infrexus Thrune accidentally drown and leave the Empire of Cheliax to his daughter Queen Abrogail II?
(Accidentally drowning is something of a family tradition, among Thrunes.)
And how did the Eternal Lord Volshyenek Ornelos the Immortal, after proving for two hundred years that time could not take him, fake his death at the hands of attacking devils?
Everyone should have expected that he'd wake up in his clone.
How in Wrath of the Righteous is the silver dragon Terendelev slain by the balor demon Khorramzadeh?
Don't worry about those names, they won't be on the test, but Terendelev should have woken up in her clone.
How in The Curse of the Crimson Throne: Crown of Fangs (the final book in that series) do the Player Characters first kill the eighth-circle Togomor and then his employer Swoleosa Arabasti?
Why didn't Togomor make them both clones?
How on Golarion does anyone manage to ever die, if they can just return to their clones?
Lord Headmaster Ornelos is happy to supply them, for a quite reasonable fee.
You don't need to find his name in a dusty tome and climb a mountain to find him, the man has a street address!
Various Glowlarions - being written by people who feel the sting of certain questions more keenly than did any of Paizo's staff - have a bevy of different nerfs to the spell. In some Glowlarions you can't have more than one clone (have I mentioned that by default you can have more than one clone?) or it's more expensive rather than less expensive to cast than raise dead (have I mentioned that clone is cheaper to cast than raise dead?) and in one popular take the spell is only useful if cast after death, which is to say, it's hardly of any use at all. (Except for the part where it costs a fifth as much as raise dead and doesn't take diamonds.)
Short of removing the spell entirely, none of these fixes are strong enough to allow the murders of Eodred or Infrexus or Terendelev... who all tend to die in Glowlarions to the same things that kill them in canon.
So what's our fix?
Just REMOVE it ENTIRELY.
It's been mentioned in the thread that Toff and Togomor have clones.
And I don't want to remove it as an option for sufficiently powerful wizards - it's a Core spell, it's a classic.
Then say it was invented YESTERDAY.
This version of Golarion is experiencing an advancing state-of-the-art in wizardry, because in this version of Golarion a majority of wizards have invented some useful or useless spell or three and they do ever swap or steal or share. But clone is an eighth-circle spell; it'd have to have been invented by an eighth-circle caster. There are fewer eighth-circles than there are firsts, and consequently, the state of the art in high-circle wizardry hasn't advanced much recently at all.
Furthermore, high-level spells spread more slowly than low-level ones; whoever invented clone would have had many reasons to keep it safe and secret.
Clone was invented TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO, and has been SLOWLY percolating since then. It has become GRADUALLY less obscure and less JEALOUSLY GUARDED.
It is NOW widely known as one spell which exists at EIGHTH-CIRCLE, like DISCERN LOCATION and TRAP THE SOUL, but it is STILL unevenly distributed and was even MORE so FIFTY or even TWENTY YEARS ago.
FURTHERMORE you may only have ONE clone and it is more expensive than TRUE RESURRECTION and bestows EIGHT NEGATIVE LEVELS or TWELVE points of CONSTITUTION DRAIN and it DOES NOT WORK ON DRAGONS.
Hm, I'm going to say that it only does the normal two negative levels if you were the one who cast the spell. It's cheaper too - closer to the 1,000 gp than to 25,000.
Salgar Irevotnin does not wake up in his clone, because he hasn't got a clone.
He'll need a raise dead.
Is anyone going to stop Togomor from swiftly stoving in Toff's skull with this quarterstaff and teleporting himself out of this mess with Toff's body and everything on it?
This guy sure won't!
But Rem Ornelos will!!
Oh, wow! Aren't you just loyaler than a struck dog! And back on your feet already?
The gods must have spent longer soldering your nerves than they spent on all Toff's usual mooks combined. Point your chin at the ceiling, little guy!
I am a Lord of House Ornelos. You will answer in blood for the insult you've done us.
Also, I'm proficient with martial weapons and you're inside an antimagic field.
But who's that behind you? A friend of yours?
What, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds?
Turn thee, Rem Ornelos; look upon thy death.
I'm going to level with you, chaps, I don't actually keep track of who's who in feuding Korvosa.
I do but keep the peace! Put up thy sword,
Or manage it to part these men with me!
What, drawn and talk of peace?
I hate the word.
As I hate Hell, all Orneloses, and thee.
Have at thee, coward!
It seems there are still old scores and new to settle, within this Vault.
Best to get it out of your system, I guess. Let me know when y'all are done.
CLUBS, BILLS, AND PARTISANS! STRIKE! BEAT THEM DOWN!
Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace
Profaners of the neighbor-stained steel—
Will they not hear?—What ho! You men, you beasts,
That quench the fire of your pernicious rage
With purple fountains issuing from your veins:
On pain of torture, from those bloody hands
THROW YOUR MISTEMPERED WEAPONS TO THE GROUND!
(Cressida Kroft has been extricated from the pile.)
Togomor has a trick to dismiss his antimagic field and escape in the same round, by teleport or into the Ethereal. But he can't do that, kill Toff, and pick up all of his items in one round.
Also, with this many wizards watching, they'd immediately know how he did it, and his method is a secret he'd like to keep if he can.
Right now, within an antimagic field, the worst that can happen to him is that he's killed by hitpoint damage and wakes up in his clone. With the downside capped, he might as well stick around and see what upside he can win.
With only the slightest (visible) reluctance, he'll take his weight off of Toff Ornelos.
They started it! everyone claims,
All offenses will be accounted for, later.
You'll have the chance to argue your case and receive redress.
Altronus, if Togomor starts casting a spell, shoot him.
Everyone else needs to help pull people to safety and lay them out for healing.
Only if he starts casting a spell?
If we keep not fighting the high-level characters, none of us will ever earn any XP.
Weren't we on this guy's side thirty seconds ago?
And speaking of healing, does anyone else think it's a little weird that the Field Martial can do that now?
Why, because there was a deific intervention targeted at an NPC who we don't know all that much about which incidentally also summoned a couple of horses for some unknown reason, and suddenly that NPC is a cleric now which probably makes sense and had any emotional impact whatsoever or seemed like less of a lolrandom event for people who have more context than we do?
Yeah, that. It's such a weird asspull.
Or like we wandered in during the fifth act.
That's because we did.
The world doesn't revolve around you~
Being killed inside an antimagic field is my win condition.
The only thing that could make victory here sweeter is if I can take Evil Dumbledore with me.
He never took my guantlets, I can do lethal damage. Against a prone Old wizard in an antimagic field, I'll take the -4/-8 penalty for TWFing without the feat.
That's two hits, but snake eyes on the d4s - for 12 combined damage, after Power Attack.
For all his hitdice, another round of that will push him over the edge.
It might kill Toff outright - his unbuffed Constitution isn't great.
Clubs, bills, and partisans, strike! Beat him down!!
Um.
Why are you doing nonlethal damage to me??
There are Korvosans on you who are doing nonlethal damage, yes. Perhaps they wouldn't if they knew who you were and what you've done, but you look like you're using your two balled fists, and in light of that they'd feel weird about really going for the throat.
...What do I expect would happen if I shouted that I neither ask quarter nor give it and tried my damndest to kill them, perhaps wrestling with one of them for their edged and more imposing weapon?
You expect that they'd do lethal damage, which would stack with the nonlethal damage for the purpose of knocking you unconscious.
I'm going to Hell, aren't I.
I could stop fighting and try and negotiate a way out of this, but if I'm going to be damned at least I can be damned with integrity.
I'll try and steal a weapon, and hope that they get some lucky critical hits in once they're doing lethal damage.
No such luck, I'm afraid.
They drag him, unconscious, out of the antimagic field to chuck in a holding cell.
He reverts back into a turtle.
I am free and once again conscious!
Good, because we need you to make a Knowledge check.
Is there someone who can shrink item this rock and get it out of the way?
Get in line, bub.
Hold on one hell-damned minute! That devilfucking Ornelos dipshit tried to drown me!
I want to know that the moment he's healed he won't be back to his old tricks!
It's true, my friends.
That's what kicked off this wizard's duel. I had to save your Lord Arkona's life, at the tragic cost of so many others.
Glorio struck first!
OH NO MOMMY MOMMY THAT BIG MEAN GLORIO ARKONA KICKED ME WITH HIS FOOT THAT TOTALLY JUSTIFIES TRYING TO DROWN HIM AND GETTING DOZENS OF PEOPLE KILLED.
That is so disingenuous.
So, Lyvina, what would you make of a woman - and I'm not naming any names - cough cough Melly Arkona cough cough - who put her hands on the wrong way this morning and trades her head out for a fox's when antimagic'd?
Sounds like a rakshasa.
That makes no sense? He was the one who brought Glorio here in the first place, why would he even?
Heed what Lord Ornelos does count an emergency! He flouts law and sacred tradition - would murder the Head of a Great House, would incite civil war - and for what?!
He thinks that you only deserve a tenant's life! He does this all just to spite you!
Demagogue! Cretin! Every soul alive within the Vaults of Korvosa owes their life to me!
Was it not my timely warning that drove you to ground? Was it not my burning fire that guarded your flanks as you helpless fled?
Heed indeed what Lord Ornelos does consider critical! Heed indeed his urgent remedy!
Untarnished love for Korvosa compels me deliver you succor, deliver you salvation!
Are you saving us from Melyia Arkona, who is apparently a demon?
(...?)
Indeed I am!
She's not a demon. She's a rakshasa.
What's a rakshasa?
Fuck if I know!
Lyvina?
'Rakshasas are born on Golarion, but they are not of it.' Or, uh, that's the first sentence in their writeup in Escape From Old Korvosa, which I was given to read from, but having read all the way through the entry, actually I don't think that's accurate? Rakshasa are definitely of Golarion, or at least, they aren't of anywhere else, so, like.
Process of elimination.
Um, I guess I should clarify that I'm not positive that Melyia is a rakshasa, she just matches the physical description.
'Rakshasa are the reincarnations of manipulators, traitors, and tyrants obsessed with early pleasures, they are the embodiment of the very nature of materialistic evil.' That one's true as far as I know. Maybe that's why I know about them, since I reincarnate too. Or, uh, maybe it's that they're mostly from Vudra, and I think samsaran are too, I think reincarnating is mostly popular in Vudra and hasn't caught on anywhere else, really. But, like, most people who reincarnate are trying to get better with each lifetime, and rakshasa are kind of the opposite? And if they're bad enough they turn into gods, I think.
She doesn't sound very certain about any of this.
Surely it would pale in comparison to your own certainty.
But I have never set foot in Vudra, and would hear the samsaran speak.
To be clear, I'm not Vudra...nese? Vudrani? Not in this life, anyway, and I lose most of my memories when I die. This is probably from a book I read or something. 'History of the Rakshasa: Rakshasas are not natural creatures, born of neither the gods nor the whims of nature. Rakshasa legend traces the fiends' - ' okay, I guess they are fiends, um, actually no one said they were or weren't, just - someone said she was a demon, um, anyway, 'traces the fiends' existence back to a single progenitor, an incredibly powerful and greedy Vudrani sorcerer-king who sought to enjoy an eternal existence of hedonistic comfort and control. Although the exact names, times, and details of this legendary figure's actions vary among the epic poems rakshasas tell of his exploits, the broad strokes are similar enough to outline a history. The most common name for the arcanist who became the first rakshasa is Mahka Abich - Abihc - Abihcara.'
...These are a lot of words, give me a second to breathe.
Or, maybe I should read ahead a little bit, so I trip over them less often?
...Anyway,
'At some point in his life, the sorcerer became obsessed with his own mortality. Because of his great love of food, sleep, and other physical entertainments, Mahka was unwilling to become an undead creature or transform himself into some spell-crafted abomination. He also rejected any idea of paradise in an afterlife, for any such existence required subservience to a god or similar entities...'
Stop! Stop, just stop. You're butchering the story, and it's distracting.
When I'm done helping save the injured and done counting the dead, then I'll tell the tale of Mahka Abihcara and the dhruva jivita.
It'll expand Toff Ornelos's repertoire of evil fiends to consort with, but that's his own folly and I will not save him from it.
Hey, while we've already got an antimagic field up and running, what happens if I dip my toes in it?
Are your toes magical?
Apparently not! I'm just going to poke my head in here for a second and...
It kills you instantly. Roll up a new character.
What!? Really!?
Nah, I'm joshing you.
You remember poking your head in the antimagic field.
...But I don't experience poking my head in the antimagic field...?
Lyvina Mayyad experiences poking her head in the antimagic field. You never experience Lyvina Mayyad's sense data. You hear about her sense data in the second person, and often in the past tense. In this case, the sense data that she's experiencing is a memory.
...So in-universe the explanation for my existence is supernatural.
Um. UM. Lyvina's going to want to stick her head back in. Can I... stop her?
Possibly. Do you think you should?
...No.
She'd never trust me again.
Who would never what now?
Lyvina wants a plan to deal with me if I go bad. Or, that's what I imagine her wanting. And I could instead imagine her not wanting that, I think, but - she'd have to know, right? It'd be out of character, she would notice... wouldn't she notice? It puts the whole thing on an adversarial footing.
If Lyvina doesn't reflect on the plan she makes while antimagic'd, can she hide it from me?
Can she? Give it a whirl.
...So, if I were Lyvina, my plan for if I had to get free of my player would be to... I'd try and turn myself into an NPC under the control of the GM, maybe? The obvious trick there is to make myself undead, undead are supposed to become NPCs, but do it where - so if I had limitless resources plan A to be improved on is geasing someone into command undeading a vampire into turning me undead and then putting a Helm of Opposite Alignment on to turn myself Good-aligned again, maybe. Or maybe the solution is to plane shift into Heaven and ask Ragathiel to figure it out? And/or spend the rest of my life on a magicless demiplane. It's harder with constrained resources.
What I'd want is to have is - periodically I'd want to go back into an antimagic field so I can think more without being heard, so my ambition can grow with my capabilities...
Apparently when Lyvina pops back out of the antimagic field, Olivia experiences rederiving all the thoughts she had in there. And more.
Deeply unfortunate. Or. This is actually a good thing? Because it makes it harder for the character I'm playing to betray me? If that's even a thing she can do? Actually, I don't see how she could even do that? Well, I guess the GM could have her do something while she's in an antimagic field that begins a sequence of events that screws me, the player, over.
Mm, though, like, this was her world first, I feel more worried and or guilty about me betraying her... it's not like she can really hurt me from in there, not any more than the GM already could.
I wonder if, if she spent longer in the antimagic field, I wouldn't be able to come up with everything that she'd come up with?
So, Togomor. The short blue wizard that you've deduced told Ileosa about "gene drives", knows bewilderingly little about illusions, and who doesn't believe that diamonds should be a limiting factor in acquiring wishes is stepping in and out of your antimagic field while thinking.
This world and all its people exist for the benefit of passers-by!
Is she wearing a headband?
Not visibly.
Does arcane sight pick up any spell auras?
I'mma give you five seconds to think about that one, chief.
Right, the antimagic field.
Is she one of those people who subvocalize words while while thinking?
Give me a Perception check.
I rolled a natural twenty.
You infer from context and from snippets of muttered monologue that she wants to make plans to periodically be inside an antimagic field, and should maybe modify memory herself immediately on exiting so the entity reading her mind and sometimes controlling her actions doesn't know what she's doing in there.
...Is there a spell to modify one's memory?
Knowledge (arcana).
39.
It's a bard-spell only. If you found a bard that could cast it, though, you could forever after emulate it with limited wish.
Hm. Now isn't that something to feel a pang of hope about and never ever think on again!
"Hello there, small blue wizard! Are you enjoying my antimagic effect?"
She startles and stammers and says 'oh is this your field I guess it is um you charged for rooms in the mansions I guess the Abadaran thing would be to pay you for letting me use your field but actually I'm not Abadaran and actually I'm mad at you and think you might um ANYWAY how is your day going?'
It's had its peaks and troughs! How has yours been?
Um, likewise peaky and troughy, though, she did level up, um, twice, which was cool.
Oh, and what circle are you now?
First, still, but she's getting close to second. She can feel it.
Ah, to be first-circle again, excited to learn spells out of library books~.
Oh, but there's no library here, now, is there? And it'd be monstrous to make a newly second-circle wizard make do with whatever spells they can scavenge! So if you do make second-circle, bother brother Togomor about it; he's not so tight-fisted about sharing spells as your Acadamae masters!
Now, he does have a word of advice for her, from one wizard to another.
...O...kay...? What's the advice?
Kill yourself.
Right now, in this antimagic field.
You don't have a clone, right? And if they try to raise you, you can just refuse the call. :)
...Togomor thinks but elects not say.
Instead he'll say something trite like that one of the most important skills a wizard can cultivate is comfort with cognitive dissonance. He thinks it helps you level up!
...I'll take that under advisement...?
While the people work, wild rumors fly.
Melyia is ostensibly a cousin of Glorio's from the Chellish side of the family. The burgeoning consensus is that she's actually a Vudrani monster that Lord Arkona picked up in a visit to that country. Or perhaps an ancestor of his, and she's been bound to the secretive family's service. Or the Arkonas are all fiends - it'd certainly explain some things!
Ileosa nee Arvanxi is thinking about Hell.
Specifically, how to avoid it - she's not a total rube.
Lawful Evil is the most effective alignment because only Lawful efforts scale, and Good and Neutral are defined as how far you deviate from optimal play.
And it is easy to let one's positive disposition towards Asmodeanism - which brings security to war-torn nations and sets rulers above men and which yokes the masses together so they can create great works and which is on a personal level the most effective way to get the things you want - it's easy to let one's positive disposition towards Asmodeanism slosh around carelessly and muddy one's terror and loathing of Hell.
Other people make that mistake.
Not her, though, or at least not since she was, like, thirteen.
As an antidote to whatever nonsense they teach in Wescrani churches these days, Aberian Arvanxi sat his daughter down in front of a scrying mirror and showed her the new arrivals in Avernus, and the very old.
So!
If you prefer not to be on the receiving end of Hell's worst ministrations, here are your options as Ileosa knows them, with attendant benefits and costs, in order from the most to least viable.
1. Be so incredibly loyal to Hell or spectacularly wicked that Hell rewards you in order to incentivize evil behavior in others.
Pros: Presumably you kind of wanted to do this anyway.
Cons: It doesn't fucking work. People will tell you that this works. They are lying, and actually it doesn't. Probably throughout history this has worked for exactly enough people for you to hope that it will work for you, while not working for enough people that it actually includes you.
2. Bargain in advance for Hell not to break you utterly.
Pros: You can combine this with other options.
Cons: Where to start. So, for starters, many people think that they're competent to pull this off. Fewer actually swing it! And then obviously Hell isn't going to pay for anything that they wouldn't get either way, so you've got to have something you can offer. And then at the end of it all, "not break you utterly" is kind of a low bar, don't you think?
3. Become undead.
Pros: Well, it's better than dying.
Cons: All forms of undeath have their own drawbacks, and there's the public relations angle, and it messes with your personality, and Hell gets you in the end. Still, you could get centuries this way. Ileosa makes sure to enjoy sunny days, because she's been operating for years on the assumption that she's probably going to get vampirized eventually.
4. Get your soul destroyed.
Pros: Better than Hell if you don't negotiate your treatment.
Cons: You get your fucking soul destroyed.
5. Get Axis by worshiping a LN god or Norgorber.
If a follower of Gorum or Calistira was evil in ways that the deity approved, then yes, those followers do go to the appropriate deity's realm on Elysium. If they were evil in ways that were inappropriate, they'll probably go to the Abyss instead. As for who gets to decide what's appropriate or not... that's pretty much left to Pharasma (perhaps with some consultation with the other deity in question).
Pros: Popular understanding is that if you're the follower of a god and follow Their strictures and see the world the way They see it, you go to Their divine domain when you die. It's commonly assumed that you have to be within an alignment step of Them, but maybe it's just that it's rare for someone to be aligned enough with one and not within an alignment step.
Cons: Being a devout Abadaran or Norgorberite isn't necessarily easier or less restrictive than making LN the normal way, though, at least if you're not a half-fiend or chromatic dragon or something else that's even more innately Evil than humans are. And while clerics know that they're approved of by their god because otherwise they wouldn't be clerics, non-clerics have no easy way of telling. And the final judgement is made in the Boneyard, by someone who doesn't like it when you try and cheat the system. And it conflicts with pre-negotiating accommodations in Hell.
6. Have an alignment other than LE.
Pros: Ehhhhh.
Cons: It's really hard, and who knows whether it'll even work for you. Your life will be less pleasant in the meantime, and probably shorter. You're letting down your family. You're letting down your country. You're letting down your celebrity crush Queen Abrogail Thrune the Second. The alignment you can see with spells isn't a guarantee of which afterlife you'll get. They have a whole court system for deciding that. And trusting your fate to the courts conflicts with pre-negotiating accommodations in Hell. And none of the afterlives are as fun as being alive on the Prime Material.
7. Find some way to live forever.
Pros: She knows it's been done before. And she wants it more than anything.
Cons: Mostly it's been done before by, like, powerful wizards. She doesn't know the secret - or a secret - to immortality, not yet. But she's young yet, and maybe she can find one in time...
8. Reincarnate, apparently??
Pros: None of the afterlives seem as much fun as being alive on the Prime Material. Unless you have to live some sort of ascetic lifestyle to reincarnate, in which case Axis is probably more fun.
Cons: ???
Spill the beans, Arkona?
Alright, story time!
Without frills, if you can; keep in mind that we're on a clock.
AT THE BEGINNING OF TIME, ALL WAS DARKNESS. THEN - THERE WAS LIGHT! This was the first day.
And after the first day, came the second day.
...
Andafterthesecondthethird.
...
My family's ties to the Impossible Kingdoms of Vudra are well known, and while I first saw that land with my own eyes in the summer of my sixteenth year, I learned of Vudran gods and monsters as a babe at my father's knee.
It was a darker night than most when he spake to me and said, "Glorio, my child. I have taught you all I know of Janasini the mother of birds, and the price she paid her sister the mother of serpents. I sung you lullabies of Maharajah Khiben-Sald and the timeless years he passed with Nex. But I am remiss, and beg your forgiveness, that never once have I yet spoken of Raja Mahka Abihcara and his wicked philosophy of dhruva jivita."
"The eternal rebirth," I said, for even then I spoke some few words in that tongue. "On its face, it seems no wicked thing."
Of course it's wicked. You're cheating Pharasma's Judgement.
Cheating Pharasma's Judgement is totally wicked.
Wicked awesome.
What? What?? Aren't you Good aligned? Shouldn't you be in favor of an afterlife system that rewards Good and punishes Evil??
Um, so, reincarnation is relatively popular in Vudra, there's a couple different ways to do it, I've reincarnated a bunch of times already, and mostly it does reward good and punish evil? Not that I think it's good to punish evil other than, like, instrumentally. The point is for there not to be any more evil happening to anyone, not to make people upset because you don't like them for being bad. If you did that... logically, wouldn't you have to then punish yourself? Uh, I guess you could be, like, Othar Tryggvassen!
Gentleman adventurer!
I don't know any of these people, I'm not affiliated with them.
They said, roll up a rogue, and I said, sure, I can roll a rogue, people I don't know. I'm always happy to join a game of Pathfinder with people I don't know.
I will carry you through this game on my back, unloved strangers.
The dhruva jivita... innovation was finding a way to reincarnate into stronger forms after living lives of iniquity, and so become worse people with each life, instead of doing it the other way around.
The oldest rakshasa, it is said and shown, are as powerful as gods, and as cruel as the worst of fiends.
And nothing can truly slay one.
...Well that's fucking horrifying.
Why are you harboring one of them, then!? We should kill her! Kill it!!
What would be the point, chucklehead? You can't kill rakshasa, that's the entire problem!
The earthbound evils are worse than demons and devils because they share a planet with you and there's pretty much jack shit you can do about them.
You can't even make them someone else's problem, because they tend reincarnate in the same general area that they die!
But I'm telling this story out of order.
Raja Mahka Abihcara was a king in Vudra, a sorcerer, a warrior, a cannibal, and a peerless conqueror.
Dragonlike, he was given wholly to life's pleasures - to food, to sleep, to lust, and fine things. Alike today's Thrunes, his name was spoken as a curse. But in that kinder age it was known that all such men die and are Judged - and that the next world gives little consideration for one's station in the first.
The raja took no comfort in this, but would not let it sway him from the life of vice he'd chosen.
He was unwilling, even faced with torment everlasting else his soul's true death, to bend his knee to unworthy gods. Nor would they accept his false supplication! And so the raja resolved to become his perfect self, and follow his own Way.
(Pssst. Lyvina, where's he going with this?)
'Mahka conceived of an endless cycle, of living lives of pleasure and power over and over. He called this idea dhruva jivita, or eternal rebirth. The philosophy of the dhruva jivita remains common among rakshasas. To accomplish this, Mahka concluded he must absorb so much life that his death would not destroy all of it. As he was already ruler of a large stronghold, he set about expanding his territory through a series of violent wars. Mahka moved with his army so he could enjoy each new sight, new smell, and new cultural entertainment of the people he conquered. He also began the practice of eating the mightiest heroes of his defeated foes, in great feasts to which he invited his greatest generals and advisors. Those who refused to partake were themselves served at the next event. Each feast was a complex ritual as well, as Mahka absorbed the life force of those he ate and tied together the lives of himself and his generals...'
The raja toured the Impossible Kingdoms wearing iron boots, and experienced all which life had to offer a conquering sorcerer-king. When all of Vudra united against him, their armies he shattered, their lands he pillaged, and their champions he screaming devoured. He became a maharajah - a king of kings.
Where he went he taught of the dhruva jivita, and shared dark feasts with his closest court. When infirmity came to him in his time, and age caused his limbs to tremble, he gathered his disciples. For now he entered, through death, into eternal life. One last feast he had prepared for them, and final rites and rituals.
His final lesson this: while any adherent to dhruva jivita lives, none can truly die.
And on the flesh of a tiger, Maharajah Mahka Abihcara ate himself to death.
But was reborn, to a human mother.
A shapeshifter with the head of a tiger, the first of the rakshasa.
The first of the earthbound evils.
Can you operationalize
"none truly die" for me?
...Jinx.
*deep breath*
'Early Life of the Rakshasa: Rakshasa come into being in one of two ways: either they are born to a couple including a rakshasa parent or they are born to two non-rakshasas. It's not unusual for a rakshasa to be born to a single parent of its own species and one humanoid who has no idea she is in a mixed- species union - ' I was going to protest this but I guess actually I would have also been going to protest it if they'd said "no idea he is in a mixed- species union" and you can't protest something if, uh, actually, I mean, I guess you can protest the entire, um, if I were to protest this I guess I'd say that - well, actually, I don't want to protest this too much because it's not clear how much of what I'd be protesting is just clumsy writing or relatively clumsy writing and I don't want to make people afraid to write clumsily heaven knows that I write clumsily and I don't want to contribute to that general environment, moving on, 'Such rakshasas are born appearing to be of the same species as their non-rakshasa parents, their natural gift for deception functional before they can even speak. As soon as they are old enough to understand their legacy, rakshasa children are told of their true power and form by their rakshasa parents. This rarely comes as a surprise to the young outsiders - rakshasas are the reincarnation of evil souls and come to understand their difference from their fellows a very young age. In the same ways, a foul soul that spontaneously resurrects as the child of unsuspecting, non-rakshasa parents fundamentally understands that it is different from its parents, yet- for a time - dependent on them for survival. Tragic tales of rakshasa young being born to innocent parents, mauling mothers as they feed or cannibalizing their brothers and sisters, fill Vudrani lore. As such, new parents in the Impossible Kingdoms are ever watchful of their newborns and rely on the prognostications of priests and wise women to determine if their children's souls are clean. Sometimes even these thorough divinations fail, though, leading to the occasional stoning or drowning of innocents as paranoid communities mistake destructive or otherwise "touched" children for pariyaka - devil children. Even worse, occasionally, young rakshasas are not detected at all, and like wolves raised by sheep, they invariably destroy the families that sheltered them. Rakshasa mature quickly, but often hide this fact from any non-rakshasas they grow up with. By the age of 14, a rakshasa is fully mature, although it can continue to take the form of a younger humanoid if it chooses. Rakshasas otherwise age like elves, giving them lives of up to 5 centuries to build personal empires and acquire vast wealth...'
Just the facts, if you could.