With all other noble families expelled from the Old Korvosa after the Cousin's War, the district belongs to sinister House Arkona, and their clandestine agents the wicked Cerulean Society.

I am a philanthropist.

The Korvosan Guard doesn't police Old Korvosa so much as occupy it. And even that can be touch-and-go. They patrol the streets, investigate crimes that disrupt day-lit civic order or spill across the Narrows of Saint Alika, and leave administration in the capable hands of competing gangs, vile House Arkona, and the Thieves Guild.

(So long as the registered crooks tally their ill-gotten income and testify under truthtelling that they’ve payed the city its dues. Externalities get taxed, Korvosa’s not running a charity here.)

Alkdjf;aksjf;dsklfas/i AM running a charity here!!!!

I object to this entire characterization.

Sure, the island is the poorest district per capita.

Have you ever thought that maybe that might have something to do with how now it's illegal to be poor where King Eodred can see it and get pissy? Effectively ban tenement halls outside Bridgefront, and poor people move to Bridgefront! And/or live illegally in a five story layer cake of teetering shacks and palpable misery! Who'd have seen that coming? Surely not House Arkona, I for one can't recall loudly and insistently predicting this exact thing.

I can't recall you predicting it either. You would have been a child at the time.

Well, I did say I didn't predict it.

...

...

And lots of people live in tenement halls outside Bridgefront. Just in nicer ones.

What's the point of even having Abadarans if you aren't going to listen to them.

But ignoring Bridgefront - which is arguably a cornerstone of Korvosa's civil religion - Old Korvosa is pretty great! Orisini Academy is the premier fighting school in all of Varisia! Of Garrison Hill's opulent buildings, Palace Arkona is merely the grandest!

And sure, the Old Dock is rough-and-tumble, the proprietor of the playhouse periodically offs audience participants, the sewers flood and it makes the otyughs angry, the district's only temple never really bounced back after their guy Aroden cheesed off the wrong rogue and we found him face-down in the Narrows.

But business is good, people are flexible, and -

And by the gods, have you seen the rest of Korvosa?

As a point of fact I have.

It's totalitarian and horrible.

But the sewers don't flood.

What our sewers lack in capacity they make up for in common sense.

Flooding sacred Shoanti barrows with human excrement was way cheaper than digging our own tunnels.

And it helps our Pharasmins level so who’s even to call it unwise?

It has been one hundred and seventy-eight years since the last time Shoanti burned Korvosa to the ground. Some would say it’s overdue.

Poberikender Andri, Rodica Andri, and their baby Ali are all asleep in bed. He’s twenty-one, she’s twenty-two.

The Andris rent one room and share amenities with the other tenants. Rent is six silver on the first of every month, but they make it work.

The three of them are desperately in love.

They have the bad luck to live below Old Korvosa’s westmost ocean-facing wall. Ooljee steals through the closed window.

Round One (12:00 AM)

Ooljee tears her incorporeal claws through Poberikender’s heart.

He takes 2d6=7 strength damage out of 3d6=10 strength, passes the DC 17 fortitude save to survive the coup de grace with a lucky roll.

He wakes screaming. Rodica wakes beside him. Ali begins to cry.

Round Two (12:00:06)

Ooljee strikes again (top of the round, standard action).

In the dark, with three strength, under a blanket, Poberikender is blinded, prone, encumbered, and entangled.

Ooljee can hardly miss. Poberikender stops screaming.

Rodica doesn't know what's happening (the room is dark and the shadow silent) but understands something is horribly wrong.

She leaps out of bed (standing from prone as a move action that provokes an attack of opportunity) – a sudden movement that ignites Ooljee’s predatory insticts.

Three strength damage. Rodica has seven left. She grabs Ali as a standard action and ends her turn.

Round Three (12:00:12)

Ooljee strikes again, 4 damage reduces Rodica to 3 strength.

Rodica is carrying a heavy load. In the dark room she is blinded. If she moves at half speed and succeeds at an acrobatics check against DC 17, she can move to the door without provoking an attack of opportunity. Her bonus to acrobatics is -7. She attempts the check.

She doesn’t make it.

Round Four (12:00:18)

The baby stops crying.

Round Five (12:00:24)

Create Spawn (Su) A humanoid creature killed by a shadow’s Strength damage becomes a shadow under the control of its killer in 1d4 rounds.

Round Six (12:00:30)

Shadows must kill all Korvosans.

Tell all shadows that shadows must kill all Korvosans.

Tell them to do it now.