In Which Ileosa Arabasti Grows Savvy to the Conventions of her Genre
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Let me tell you a story.

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So, background: the Mr. and Missus Carowyn were a pair of horrid gossips and I thought I'd improve Korvosa's social scene a little bit by having the both of them murdered by an assassin, and a few of their friends.

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...Is that why I had to fight like a million dancing zombies in Carowyn manor, and an evil clown?

The Carowyns were gossips? 

I don't think it's proportionate to turn people into the backup dancers from Michael Jackson's Thriller just for gossiping about you.

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There were not supposed to be dancing zombies!

There was not meant to be an evil clown!

Anyway, I hire this Red Mantis, Reiner Davaulus,

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Davaulus was a Red Mantis Assassin?

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Allegedly! Although he sure didn't get around to very much assassination!!

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Anyway, I tell Davaulus to do in the Carowyns, and make it look like it was plague.

So what does he do? 

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...He decides to hire out to an evil clown?

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He delegates the murder to the Cult of Urgathoa, who've been doing odd jobs for the Red Mantis, except I guess they're busy because a list of names in my handwriting lands on the desk of a local wizard named Rolth (I never did manage to extract a surname), who has in turn been doing odd jobs for the Cult of Urgathoa.

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And Rolth is an evil clown necromancer elf lady. 

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No he isn't, but his girlfriend is!!!

This four-layer deep stack of delegation works roughly as well as you'd expect. Through some miracle of transmutation which I'm sure an alchemist could properly explain, my request to "make it look like they all died of the plague that's catching, so no one knows that they were even murdered," turned into "dress and paint yourself like a circus clown and kill everyone attending the mask party with crossbow bolts you've dosed with plague or smoke bombs that contain blood from the infected, reanimate the corpses, and stay for days at the scene of the crime drinking and dancing with the zombies!"

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You know what.

I'm going to take the genre-relevant entries from your Evil Overlord List, bulk it out with the stuff I know it's missing, and make it required reading for any assassin who wants my money.

There will be a quiz at the end. With word problems.

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I'm just shaken that the Red Mantis both have people who can pass as sane to casual inspection, and that those ones are somehow even worse at their jobs.

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Well, if you have a substitute crew of contract killers, feel free to recommend them. 

What's number fifty-six?

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56. My Legions of Terror will be trained in basic marksmanship. Any who cannot learn to hit a man-sized target at 10 meters will be used for target practice.

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A man-sized target, within your first range increment, it's AC 3, and if you take a round to line up a shot against an inanimate object you get +5... I don't know if using them as target practice is useful, that probably depends on how secure you are in power, and maybe they have garbage Dex and aren't proficient with the weapon but have other skills to make up for it, but it definitely seems like a problem if your minions can't make that shot, it doesn't take a Menador archer.

Presumably the thing Peter actually cares about is whether his minions can hit a real human, though, which is AC 10 or higher. You can't fault people for missing that sometimes... I'm guessing that Peter has seen a lot of poorly trained soldiers, or soldiers who don't train with ranged weapons? Your soldiers should train with ranged weapons, even if that's not what they expect or hope to be doing most of the time. The Gray Maidens carry bows.

What's number fifty-seven?

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57. Before employing any captured artifacts or machinery, I will carefully read the owner's manual.

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An owner's manual being... a book that explains how to work the artifact or the machine?

I don't think Golarion really has those.

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But it SHOULD.

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You're not in this scene!

This thread is just for me and Choryon!

Go away! 

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What's fifty-eight?

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58. If it becomes necessary to escape, I will never stop to pose dramatically and toss off a one-liner.

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Spoken like someone with zero ranks in Perform (oratory) and who can't maintain their Bardic Performance as a free action.

It's nice when there are rules which clearly don't apply to Ileosa on account of how she's more skilled than most Evil Overlords.

What's rule fifty-nine?

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It's one that doesn't apply to you:

59. I will never build a sentient computer smarter than I am.

Number sixty: 

60. My five-year-old child advisor will also be asked to decipher any code I am thinking of using. If he breaks the code in under 30 seconds, it will not be used. Note: this also applies to passwords.

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Does the five-year-old get comprehend languages? 

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