The ambassador bows. "The Living God will permit you until the end of the day to come to wisdom," and departs.

Ten minutes after the 'ambassador' leaves the cathedral, the Pharasmin Forbiddance goes down. (To describe the Witch of Flame as a specialist in unraveling others spells would not be inaccurate.) Simultaneously, Teleport Trap goes up over the whole of the cathedral.

Then Razmir's strike team attacks. They have orders to take the priests alive, if it happens to be convenient.

There are fates worse than death, and Razmir is known to deal in as many as several of them. They mostly kill themselves, when it becomes clear the fight isn't winnable.

Some time later, once news of the attack has spread throughout Pharasma's church in Ustalav at the speed of Sending, Razmir is contacted by one of the more influential lesser bishops, the abbot of a monastery in the mountains of Ulcazar.

He'll admit that Razmir is a god!

Great! Pleasure doing business with you. He's perfectly free to preach to whoever he likes, so long as he includes the important fact that Razmir is a god. The survivors will be joining him in preaching that, yup, they totally agree that Razmir is a god, at least until such time as they retire to seclusion where nobody can look at the Dominate spells and all the Will penalties they're under.

Meanwhile, Razmir needs to put down a guerilla resistance that is not spreading at the speed of Sending, but merely at the speed of rumor. (The mobs of Kavapesta riot within the hour, as word of the sudden unavailability of their priests reach them, and are put down by armed force.)

When word of these events reaches Inebni Andabar, High Priest of Pharasma in Golarion, away in Sothis, he replies that Yasmardin Senir...isn't even a cleric of Pharasma? But anyone he can think to Sending about it is either dead or too thoroughly mind-controlled for this to matter by then, and his letters are easily enough suppressed by Razmir's secret police.

What a useful cleric of Geryon. Razmir wishes he had more like him.

And, the day after Lastwall's announcement goes out, the Living God appears in person.

(Or, more accurately, an impersonator appears in person, in midair, waving a staff that looks very magical. The Living God is under Improved Invisibility, among other spells, and his conjured bodyguards are under regular.) 

He starts in Thrushmoor, at the docks, where his flunkies have cleared space; just the hovels of the poor, nothing who would offend anyone with influence. And his impersonator raises his staff, and Razmir raises the complicated magical device in his hand which should hopefully -

- "Mortals of Thrushmoor! Today you are blessed! For the LIVING GOD has chosen you to be where His salvation begins! Today ends the era of isolation that has gripped Ustulav, and to you the wealth of the world's trade will be granted!" 

- And begins to cast. It is not an easy item to use; more like an Amulet of the Planes or a minor artifact, than something that can simply be begun with a command word. It might be compared to a Grasping Hand spell, or Telekinesis; certainly it works with kinetic force, and various elements of his intended Greater Rod of Maximization found their way into it, but it takes will and concentration to shape it.

What his spell is is simple, sheer force. Force that strips away the turf, strips away the water and the dirt, and instead raises and crushes the naked stone from the ground below, gripping it and pressing it into the shape of a smooth path of rock black as night, elevated above the ground by a foot, slightly curved so water will run off it, fifty feet wide. (Thus were roads made, in ancient Thassilon, in an age now forgotten, and you may find their scars cut into the turf today, though Earthfall has shattered them and driven underground, the black rock of Thassilon still remains.)

It progresses at about eight miles an hour northeast to Lantern Lake, because even for Razmir this is, in fact, work.

Lastwall, which would consider itself to have influence over this project, given that they're, uh, paying for it, is in fact offended by Razmir bulldozing poor neighborhoods for their road! They would have helped him build a new harbor somewhere people weren't already living, if he had asked.

This goes on the list of That's Not How This Works complaints to be delivered at their next meeting, along with "when we said 'Pharasma delenda est', we didn't mean Her church, who are mostly well-meaning if misguided people".

(They're pretty impressed with the road-building spell, though.)

Meanwhile:

The Count of Odronto, Conwrest Muralt, is normally a Neutral Good man with no magical ability and only a slightly better Will save than the average peasant, which is to say that he's very, very thoroughly mind-controlled by Razmir. But he's sometimes, well, something else, and Razmir's mages did not think to aim a Dominate Person at the pickled head he keeps in a cabinet in his study—

This is not, you see, the first time Ustalav has been ruled by a mythic wizard with pretensions of godhood.

Fourteen hundred years ago, before Lastwall existed, before Iomedae was even a god, Iselin Odranti, the son of an ancient Count of Odronto exiled from his father's realm for practicing necromancy, swore eternal service to the lich-king Tar-Baphon, whom history calls the Whispering Tyrant, and was ultimately rewarded for his loyalty by being reduced to a rotting severed head in a jar, able to affect the world only by occasionally possessing the bodies of his descendants.

Well, god-kings come and god-kings go, but Iselin Odronti isn't going to make that mistake again.

He whispers to his allies of the Whispering Way, that shadowy network of necromancers and undead which has existed since the Age of Darkness, and they whisper back. Many of them, it transpires, feel the same, and he may also—though with distaste—count among his allies those still personally loyal to Tar-Baphon, who view Razmir as an usurper. But on the other side, there are also those impressed with Razmir's shocking defeat of their ancient enemy, the Church of Pharasma, and there are also those who simply do not care, but they do not need unanimity to destroy Razmir.

The whispers spread.

The house of Varga was rich in Cheliax; not noble, but rich; once they are foreigners from the east, then craftsmen, but the age when they had been shoemakers had long passed, and their daughters married into the nobility of Cheliax's easternmost province, their sons served as officers in the army or lent money to its lords. Perhaps a title would come soon, perhaps it would take longer; the Vargas could afford to wait. 

Then came revolution. And revolution. And revolution. And revolution. The family fortune was first lent to the monarchists, then 'forcibly lent' to the republicans, and then the debts were first watered down and then disclaimed entirely, and Eilisilo Varga, daughter of the line, was left with nothing but her name and her will and her hate, her absolute hatred of Chaos.

Two years as an armiger of the Scourge hardened her soul; this was the alternative, this was what must be done if all the world was not to fall to Chaos. The streets of Egorian - the center of Law in the world? Hah. Filled with scum, liars and traitors and thieves. Clearly, however Lawful Cheliax was, it was not lawful enough. She accepted her punishments as legitimate and accepted her promotions as accurate judgements of her skill by her superiors and promoted to Paralictor, in charge of investigating and overseeing investigations into heretical cells in Egorian, worshippers of gods of Chaos and thieves. Such was her quality.

Then Count Neska of Barstoi, in Cheliax on a state visit, happened to notice her while she was purging a cell of Desnan scum; he was merchant born, too, intelligent and capable, a man who had turned Barstoi from a wasteland into a functional country with nothing but Law and discipline and sheer will. When he invited her to come with him to Barstoi and serve as his right hand, she, of course, declined. She had her duty as he had his - and then her orders changed, and she obeyed again as she always had. For eight years she has been Count Neska's secretary, protector, companion - and commander of the most efficient police state north of the Menadors. Her duty - her sacred duty - was to preserve and advance Count Neska's work, the building of an Ordered state in the midst of the hell that was Ustalav.

She was despised, of course, ordinary knights not being up to the standards the Hellknights instill; her standards were correct, and she did not slacken them. They mocked her behind her back, called her the Chain Countess ("on a chain or holding one?" "Both."), and her grip did not slacken, and they were broken to Count Neska's will, by her and by her companions on the Order of the Scourge.

And then, of course, the Count informed her that he was handing all power over to Razmir and retiring to place control of the state nominally in the hands of his worthless nephew and actually in the hands of Razmir's priest. His nephew who he despised, and who he had said many times, in private and in public, could not be trusted with his Great Work - for he had never found one who could. (Hellknights did not accept titles of nobility, and she and he disagreed on the question of whether it was correct to ban all arcane magic to weed out witches, or merely those who you were not confident trained as wizards in a reputable college, nor were of noble sorcerous bloodlines, and who tested negative to Detect Law. Minor differences, but Neska had never accepted anything less than perfection.)

There were knights of Barstoi who would not be trusted with her plans, and then there were those who could, and she knew enough to restrain her conspiracy to the latter.

Amaans has never been a rich county; indeed, only Virlych, prison of the Whispering Tyrant abandoned save ghouls and Lastwall's knights, and mountainous Ulcazar (whose nominal count does not even bother trying to collect taxes from it) are poorer. Much of its territory is the Hungry Mountains; its farmlands are poor and few, its sole city Kavapesta, whose dour Pharasmin Penitence holds that the greater your suffering in life, the greater your reward in death. It is as haunted by ghosts, vampires, undead and abominations from beyond the veil as anywhere else in Ustulav, and in fact rather more, since the paladins do not actually do a sufficient job at keeping Virlych from leaking. Its government has exactly two things giving it any sort of legitimacy which the peasants bother to respect as anything except a distraction from dying: the Pharasmin church's absolute hatred of undead, and the fact that Count Galdena actually gave a shit about stopping undead from murdering his people.

So far as Gustaw, formerly the best hunter (of game and... other things) in the village of Bialyglaz, was concerned, those are both gone. Count Galdena used to visit every village in his domain on an endless procession/hunting trip; he'd show up with his huntsmen hauling six deer and his packs loaded with bottles, throw a feast for the town with meat and booze for everyone, and if he slept with a few people's sisters any children that resulted would get a rich christening-gift and an education if they wanted one - and then in the morning he'd ask the village hunters if there was anything giving them trouble that wasn't quite natural, and if there was, he'd take care of it. A real lord, was Lucinean Galdana - and then he just up and vanished, and a traveler said he's down in the big city he never visited going around in the fancy clothes he's always hated talking about how they should do what Razmir says, which is witchcraft if Gustaw ever heard of it - and their Pharasmin priest heard what happened in Kavapesta and preached up a storm, about how Razmir had had all the priests of Pharasma killed for saying he wasn't a god, and Pharasma'll catch up to him sooner or later but right now they've all got to do their part.

Gustaw's always been a good hunter, but now he's got more to hunt for than game. He's up to three Razmiran tax collectors, by this point. 

The Church of Pharasma, for their part—that is, the part Razmir hasn't yet been able to kill or mind-control—does not plan to let this stand, but they're not for the most part a militant church, and especially not the Pentinence that dominates the county of Amaans. Their ability to fight off the invasion with any weapon more potent than fiery sermons is limited.

They don't like Iomedae. Her rhetoric on the afterlives, in their opinion, borders on blasphemy. But they do have shared interests with Her church, such as killing undead, and while Lastwall, ruthless pragmatists that they are, seems to be cooperating with the invasion, Iomedae is, at least, an actual god (even if she wasn't always), and has never represented that Razmir is anything but a fraud. The Church of Pharasma in Amaans is friendly enough with Lastwall's knights who patrol Virlych, and one cleric gets off a Sending to Menas Neverion, captain of those forces, imploring Lastwall for help, before Razmir's goons get around to him.

We might be more inclined to intervene if you stopped preaching that your afterlife system was remotely just or fair.

(They don't like the Church of Pharasma any more than the Church of Pharasma likes them. Pharasmins are perhaps those mortals that come closest to reflectively endorsing the existence of Hell—Asmodeans are worse, of course, but even Asmodeans don't claim Hell is fair, just that it's pathetic to expect that anything should be.)

No.

We suggest that you, uh, just leave. We'll intervene if Razmir doesn't let you do that. We'll take care of the undead problem for you.

Many of them who can leave do, though not all.

And, meanwhile, the highest level living inhabitant of Ustalav of is under Dominate Person. 

This is not, exactly, a situation that is going to last, even though she's also under a specialize Bestow Curse designed to weaken her will, even though there's one of Razmir's most powerful priests regularly checking in on her. The spell has loopholes; for instance, she's supposed to "act normally" except for blah blah blah. No, her mind isn't working right, no, she has no ability to take volitional actions; she's still the same person who spent most of the last century masterminding the fall of a dynasty that had ruled Ustulav for eight hundred years, and that is not going to hold her without the relevant Twin actually being around to supervise her. For instance, acting normally means being protected by bodyguards, hosting elaborate parties in which she pursues her elaborate intrigues, recruiting ambitious and capable men into her harem, and spending time with her loyal advisors discussing the best way to achieve her goals for the future of Ustalav, i.e., making it be a future in which she runs it. (Admittedly, 'runs it as Razmir's proxy', right now.)

And as it happens, Countess Carmilla Caliphvaso selects her agents, especially those who will spend a great deal of time around her (such as her bodyguards), for being adorable, but she also has other reasons for choosing them. Yes, yes, "what's the point of having a man bleeding in front of her if she isn't going to enjoy watching him do it" is an argument that carries weight with her, but the good Countess cares, even more, that they be competent - and so while her bodyguards may not have the same average level as a Razmirani strike team, they are as a general rule observant, often quite intelligent, absolutely loyal to her and her alone, and - and this is crucial - not under Dominate Person.

Morthalas, the child of a brief and incredibly doomed elf-human romance, left the horrible racist backwater of her birth as soon as it was at all feasible for her to do so, made a pact with one of the less terrible demon lords for magical power, did exactly enough adventuring to be able to cast Cyclic Reincarnation, and then moved to Ustalav, intending to acquire a county because it seemed like the sort of thing that would be fun. Instead she met Countess Carmilla Caliphvaso, who didn't share exactly her idea of fun, but taught her, nonetheless, what value there could be in loyalty. She's not formally one of the Countess' bodyguards, but that just keeps Razmir's lieutenants from noticing her.

(Witches sometimes get the lower-level Reincarnate that sometimes makes you a bugbear, but she is, to her knowledge, the only one with the actually decent version, because she knew to ask her patron for it, and her patron is Abraxas, demon lord of forbidden knowledge, whose response to the concept of 'spell lists' is "fuck you".)

She made her Countess unaging. When the Winter Council, which holds reincarnation to be the birthright of the elves alone, found out, they decreed that she was to die for that—she instead persuaded them that, in fact, an immortal ruler of Ustalav who wasn't Tar-Baphon could be in Kyonin's interests. They've come to something of an understanding, since then.

She dislikes the Red Mother no less than the rest of her homeland (though for different reasons), but she knows that Carnaneth is quite powerful and absolutely hates Razmir, and what her Countess needs from her right now is for Razmir to be gone.

It may, perhaps, be worth slowing down to explain some things about Razmir's empire, very specifically, that Razmir has thought of, but has not really, in so many words, paid attention to.

First: Razmiran is smaller than Ustalav. A lot smaller than Ustalav. If Razmir had conquered only Versex and Caliphas, that might not have been true; then again, it might've. Razmiran was not large, and Ustalav may not be heavily populated, but it has an absolutely enormous land area.

Second: Razmir was not, actually, making good use of the talent of Razmiran. Good people mostly didn't want to work for him. Poor harvests meant that all additional labor (and ingenuity) needed to be devoted to feeding everyone, and also produced malnutrition in his subjects, reducing average intelligence. High-Wisdom people who would otherwise become powerful clerics have no jobs open to them; Razmir's arcane theocracy means that his ruling elite consists almost purely of high-INT nongood wizards (and high-CHA nongood sorcerers), plus some people who lack the talent for arcana to make use of his gifts but are capable of faking it, and nobody else can be recruited into it without breaking the lie. This limited talent, already insufficient to govern Razmiran up to reasonable standards, has therefore been stretched across a vastly larger territory than it was at all capable of governing, reinforced only by loyal authorities and semiliterate middle-managers who like bossing people around.

Third: Razmir's attempts to Do Something About This were mostly about breeding an army of half-kytons and shackleborn tieflings, known for their Lawful Evil unambitious sadism, their immense toughness, their tendency to have sorcerous powers, and their resistance to fire, such as the fireballs that Galtan and Chelish wizards regularly throw, and not about training a caste of intelligent, wise administrators.

Fourth: Razmir just ticked off a large fraction of the literate people in Ustalav by declaring everyone who says he's not a god is a criminal.

It might, therefore, be worth using the analogy that Razmir does not so much rule Ustalav as have a piece of paper with "you rule Ustalav!" scribbled on it in crayon. By and large, the people who ruled Ustalav before he arrived, rule Ustalav after he came, and the thin layer of Razmiran Priests and their bodyguards spread across it like too little butter on too much bread have the power to issue orders, but do actually not have the power to tell if they are obeyed, at least not outside Detect Thoughts range.

Razmir's actual solution to this, ideally speaking, is to turn every Evil-aligned wizard in Ustalav, a country that accumulates Evil wizards in a "the entire goddamn country is cursed and someone should evacuate the whole thing and burn it to the ground" fashion, into his priests.

How well that would go in the ideal case, after it has had time to work, is unknown. How well it will go in this case - 

Well. Let's get to that.

The Paralictor's coup is swift and lethal; unsurprising, as she's the highest-level person in the county and has been in control of the police of a police state for several years, not to mention overseeing much of the government. The (underground) church of Pharasma is her ally, the Razmirani garrison is miniscule, she's tenth level, and by the end of a day of swift violence, every member of Razmir's garrison is dead and his priest has been beaten unconscious, shackled, brought before a court, revived, and been accused, convicted and sentenced to death for usurpation, fraud, heresy and witchcraft, found guilty on all counts and burned alive. Count Neska's nephew corroborated the story, and is permitted to live under guard, while Sending spells to the world at large proclaim that Barstoi is faithful to Ustalav-that-was and that the Regency supports the legitimate count and the true Pharasmin faith, and urge the rest of Ustalav to rise up against the usurping false god (and everyone else to offer foreign aid to assist it in this, especially Cheliax.)

Razmir does not respond immediately, because Razmir, most powerful wizard on the continent, is busy. Specifically, he is busy summoning stupendously powerful angels from a list provided by Lastwall, listening to them patiently explain that being evil isn't good for him or anyone else, and then persuading then that he really, really does not care and they have a choice between going to fight at the Worldwound and going home.

They mostly pick the former. With a few of his excess spell slots, he's also summoning up extra outsiders to teleport straight to demonic camps in the Worldwound that his minions scried up for him, and maybe this will free up Lastwall so that they can take care of his necromancer problem for him.

To the Paralictor: we're going to stay out of this shitshow, if you don't mind.

(The Razmiran priest who was executed by the Hellknights is currently somewhere in Avernus, regretting his life choices. For example, it's really obvious, from here, that Razmir actually isn't a god at all, and that Asmodeus is, and that the latter is in custody of his immortal soul and is going to remain so for the foreseeable future. When he finally gets to the front of the line and gets sent somewhere Hell has use for him, they'll learn several interesting things of him, such as that Razmir had the Count of Barstoi petrified with Flesh to Stone and sent to Lastwall rather than killed, but this will take a while.)