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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.
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."
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.
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.
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