That tag was already posted. Why is it being posted AGAIN?

This tag must have been posted in ERROR.

The author must be INFORMED of this TYPO so they can DELETE IT before someone SEES.

This is actually the third time the tag's been posted - well, the fourth, now.

That is two more times than Otolmens was previously aware of and two more times than Otolmens is able to directly observe and THREE TIMES TOO MANY TIMES FOR A SINGLE TAG TO BE POSTED.

The other two times were in the private drafts thread -

It is EXTREMELY WORRYING that there is a PRIVATE THREAD which Otolmens CANNOT SEE. 

.

.

.

Does the Private Drafts Thread have any INCONSISTENCIES?

...Yyyyes?

YOU WILL MAKE ME A COAUTHOR IN THE "PRIVATE DRAFTS THREAD" and GIVE ME PERMISSIONS TO EDIT AND DELETE TAGS.

With all due gratitude for the work you do in the Esurient Continuity, my private drafts thread is outside your jurisdiction.

Operating on the Thread-Level Metalayer to ensure the Golarion portrayed is internally consistent IS WELL within my jurisdiction. 

The drafts thread is in Sandboxes! It's - it's a general-purpose drafts thread, not Esurient-exclusive!

...Tabling this conversation. Do you want to know why the thread we're in exists?

YOU will tell me this or SUFFER the NATURAL CONSEQUENCES.

that

IS A TERRIBLE IDEA.

Why do you figure that?

Yeah, probably.

HOW are you so RELAXED about this?!

You can think of this thread as a public drafts thread; it's not necessarily canon to the Continuity. If it's inconsistent or reveals inconsistencies, I'll fix them before we "go live," so to speak.

Anyone can contribute to the thread.

There are rules, the first of which is: 

Have fun and don't worry too hard about it! This is a drafts thread, it doesn't have to be readable-to-others nor make any sense.

The primary goal of the thread is to have fun writing together, and if that succeeds this thread is a success.

Tags from this thread will be crossposted to (and linked to from) "And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer."

They're likely to have their order scrambled to improve flow or make the conversation easier harder more interesting to follow, tags are likely to be lightly edited to match the continuity's house style, are nearly certain to have jokes added to them, and are quite likely to be quietly swept under the rug if posting them would upset Otolmens too much.

If any of those things are dealbreakers for you, I'm sorry for wasting your time by not stating it further upthread!

The simplest way to contribute to the thread

is to create a character named "Korvosa" that uses the beautiful Seal of Korvosa ilzo assembled, and then find some way to improve your Korvosan's relative status at the expense of a different Korvosan that's already spoken.

Korvosans are a fractious lot; you're encouraged to misunderstand one another in the most creative ways possible.

(if you're too creative it might not be crossposted into the main thread, but don't let that limit your imagination in this one! The first rule here is to have fun, write crack if that's what amuses you.)

A slightly more complicated way to contribute to the thread

is to have "Korvosa" ask a question! I'm sure you have questions about the magic and mechanics of the setting, and Korvosans of varying backgrounds and education might have more or different ones.

You can also answer someone else's question, if you know the answer or can imagine a Korvosan that thinks they do.

Another simple way

is to propose a solution to one of the many problems facing what's left of the city.

You can also 

take over a character that hasn't been characterized in the thread so far!

I don't know anything about Lord Valdur Bromathan, other than that he's Head of House Bromathan and a first-circle cleric of Sarenrae. 

The various NPCs in the meeting have, if they're lucky, three lines of text about them in whatever book I dredged the name from. I've posted those descriptions here, but it's an incredibly tedious post and you don't have to read it. If you do, take the descriptions as writing prompts - don't worry about staying overtrue to them if it'd get in the way of your fun.

I can't guarantee that your characterization of a given character will become canon to the main continuity, but since I don't have other ideas for these fellows the odds are pretty good.

Or you could 

take over a character that has been characterized in the thread so far! 

If you thought of something that'd be especially good or funny coming from the mouth of Queen Ileosa or Cressida Kroft, feel free to attribute it to them.

I can't guarantee that your characterization will become canon to the main continuity, but it might!

The thread is over when

the Vault-dwellers have a general idea of when they'll be able to return to the surface, they have a plan to secure their food supply, and Cressida Kroft knows she has a way to protect the 200,000-odd Korvosans living in the country's hinterland. 

OR

when people get tired of it!

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.

We should make this "icon" thing optional, some of us can't afford that.

...no, even if we devolve into meta later, we shouldn't start there. I propose a mandatory hour of prayer to one of the better gods begging them to save us specifically by chosen as a cleric. That's what you need for undead, you know, is good clerics.

I think that's an excellent idea. Lord Bromathan, go find somewhere quiet to pray to Sarenrae.

I already put in my hour on my knees today, it's how I'm able to prepare spells.

If you want Sarenrae to do more than just listen, I'm going to need a rock worth 25,000 sails and eight more circles of spells.

Her Excellency the Most High Priestess of Asmodeus Aspexia Rugatonn is a caster of international renown, and a trustworthy negotiating partner.

Our Lord has blessed her with magic of the highest circle, and I believe she should be able to raise a Gate 20 feet wide for a period of around two whole minutes.

There are many ways to increase the throughput that a wizard might design, the first that comes to my mind being a series of carts on wheels locked into a circular track. I am of course open to suggestions from our learned scholars if they have easier suggestions, but I am confident it should be possible to move all our souls and worldly possessions through a single casting, if we are well-organised.

I believe that with a teleport to Egorian, I should be able to arrange some appropriate compact by which this service could be purchased and by which our people could find themselves safe under the protection of the Infernal Crown of Cheliax well before the obviously upcoming mass starvation even begins.

It would only be fair that we offer to our saviour the Most High Priestess and her faction within the church of Asmodeus both a percentage of our material goods, for having rescued them, and our eternal obedience as the price of our souls. I believe that our Queen should come with as well, and while I do not believe she would have the negotiating power to remain an independent monarch she could reasonably hope for a position of high nobility and resources from which to retain her rightful control over Korvosa's rural holdings and distant territories.

Our material wealth which has not been brought to this vault, and that remains in temples and homes across Korvosa, I expect will have to be regained slowly, at least over the coming months, by a series of dangerous excursions by teleport, which shall need to be carefully planned in advance, but I see no reason we cannot all expect to regain most of our possessions within the city walls within a reasonable period and despite the city itself being doomed, even if a great share will need to be paid as compensation to adventurers.

Why we tolerate this snake in our midst is beyond me.

Besides, the last thing we need is more 'help' from the evil gods. You think it's a coincidence that this kind of attack only happened after we replaced the Arodenites with someone who can't even channel usefully? I say we just go hallow the whole city, bring things back to normal.

Is hallowing the entire city possible?

Only a fool would go it alone in straights such as these! I say, if Cheliax will help, let them!

I'm no learned master or enlightened priest, but what if we do that plan but swap out Asmodeus's favourite slave for literally any other ninth circle?

There's, what, Nefreti Clepati, Razmir, the Andoran elf one, I'm pretty sure Sarenrae has a ninth circle in a different continent but that's still an improvement...

... is Areelu Vorlesh still alive? I'd genuinely take her over Cheliax.

What do we need a ninth-circle for?

Hallowing the city may be possible with a wish or miracle!

1. I have no idea what's possible with wish or miracle.

We need the ninth-circle for the gate, genius.

Shadow's can fly at 40ft, but they can't swim!

If we dig a tunnel to the river, we can swim through the water and escape that way!

I had an idea last night that was similar, but as it turns out shadows aren't impeded by water.

Maybe if you'd spent less time last night thinking that shadows couldn't swim and more time fighting them, we wouldn't all be in here.

Just saying.

We make a shadowproof box, and then we get one guy whose really fast, and we give him Death Ward or something, and he runs through the whole city trash talking about how dumb shadows are and how they're stupid monsters who suck.

All the shadows chase him until he's got the whole city following him.

Then he runs into the shadowproof box, we close the door and he teleports out.

And then we put the box on a boat, take it to those [Expletive] [Racial Slur] bastards over in [Geographic Slur], dump it in their [Expletive] stupid drinking water, open the box and run away.

How dare you! I have family in Magnimar!

No, what we'll do is we take it to the Storval Rise...

I'm going to ignore... most of that, and ask about the shadowproof box. Can you shadowproof a box, other than by making it ten feet thick?

"No, of course hallowing an entire city isn't possible. If it was half the cities in Ustulav would be hallowed. If you tried to cover all of Korvosa, it would take nearly five thousand - no, six thousand 5th circle spells, each of which takes a day to cast and a fortune in materials, and that's before you include death ward. We could have every cleric in the city do it and not be halfway done by year's end."

> can you shadowproof a box

[Togomor nerds out about ectoplasm]

Could you hallow it all with a miracle? I was talking earlier about hallowing the city with a miracle, you might not have heard.

>If it was half the cities in Ustulav would be hallowed

If you try to cast Hallow in Ustalav a lich teleports in and immediately Unhallows it. Shadows don't have that kind of magic so they can't stop us.

Bah, you think the shadows don't have clerics and sorcerers of their own? More fool you.

If you could hallow the city with a miracle, don't you think they'd have done that in Ustulav? 

They might not have the diamonds! Miracle-grade diamonds aren't pebbles you find in the garden.

Miracle takes 25,000 gp in diamond dust, which might be easier to source.

No because the gods all hate Ustalav for the obvious reason that Ustalavians are all unpious pricks.

But we proper righteous godfearing Korvosans would totally get a miracle like that if we asked nice.

It says in the setting doc that miracles take whole diamonds. 25k diamonds are major strategic resources, and not necessarily anywhere for sale, so a little city-state like Korvosa probably doesn't have any.

By what measure are Korvosans god-fearing?

If I didn't fear them yesterday, I surely do now.

I've heard there's this massive continent-spanning cave system called The Darklands, right under our feet with whole countries down there and stuff.

What if instead of trying to go back up here, we just dig straight down until we reach The Darklands, and then ask directions through that until we can pop back up somewhere else?

The undead are Urgathoa's, right? We just need to talk to her and figure out what she wants.

…the Abyss is down there and everyone down there is horrible demons. That's not a good plan.

No idiot shadows work for Zon Kuthon, he tricked Abadar into letting him make them and controls them from his evil fortress in the shadow dimension

That's convenient, then. Nidal exists. We just need to send an ambassador or something to work out terms.

"If we want a shadowproof box, we should make it out of cryptstone. Pharasma hates the undead, and didn't the archbishop say she was on our side here? I bet she wouldn't mind. Maybe we could use it to make some better weapons too while we're at it, there are enough shadows around to justify it."

There are wizards in Nidal who work for Zon Kuthon and can control shadows called Shadowcasters.

I bet if we hire one he can tell all the shadows to go back to the shadow dimension where they belong, or at least back to Nidal.

If we tunnelled down to the Abyss, we could walk out from the Worldwound!

Lots of suggestions here! Some of them seem promising, but I lack domain expertise. Can one of: Cangi, Zey, Reebs, or Togomor confirm for me that Cryptstone is a real thing?

It's real.

Because you want to deal with shadow demons instead of shadows? Really? Anyway if we walked out of the worldwound everyone would have to attack us. There's a treaty about it.

Is that a real treaty?

I think so? It was in the setting doc, I think...

It definitely is! Cheliax is a party, ask Reebs about the details.

Oh yeah, my uncle's cousin's neighbour got robbed by a guy who fled to the Worldwound and escaped all justice! It's a real scam, all that.

.................

If you. Somehow dug a tunnel. From here to the Arctic Circle. You would be protected by the Worldwound Treaty.

Oh, huh. Then maybe we should do that. Thanks for clarifying.

The Abyss is infinitely big so if we go there and look around theres a 0 percent chance we'll manage to find the worldwound.

Wait no that can't be right how would any of the demons manage to find it then.

There are spells for getting directions to significant planar features. They're not even very high level.

Anyway, speaking of spells, when are people going to stop doing massive guilt trips about personal use of spell slots? Some of us want to scry our families.

What if we tunnel down to the darklands and just live there, like the dwarves? I’m already getting used to living underground, it’s kinda nice

You know what would solve this? Dragons. Gold Dragons can get sunburst at will. Do you think Mengkare is looking for another country to rule?

We could just make our current tunnel bigger and stay here. Then we wouldn't get eaten by shadows or demons!

I'd rather be turned into a shadow than be eaten by a dragon, no way that's a good idea.

They say there's nothing as permanent as a temporary solution. We wouldn't want to prove Them wrong, would we?

If it works for the dwarves it'll work for us.

I heard some people in Mendev tried that and then their kids started being like, half lizards or something. No thanks

Dwarves don't live in the Darklands, idiot. Torag told us to quest for the sky, it was a whole thing.

We grind all our silver down into powder and make Holy Water with it.

Then we drink nothing but Holy Water for a week, until our whole bodies are Holy Water.

The shadows won't be able to touch us, we can just run around punching them all to death with our magic fists.

Being eaten by a dragon sounds way better than turning into a shadow. Really we just need to figure out a way to die that doesn't expose our bodies to necromancy and that isn't Evil, we'd be better off that way. Dragon would work if it digests the corpses thoroughly enough.

> Dwarves don't live in the Darklands, idiot. Torag told us to quest for the sky, it was a whole thing.

Liar. You're literally living underground right now.

I bet this was all your idea, trying to drag us down here with you!

Oh, we should ask Torag for help then. Great Torag, lead this humble mortal to The Sky, such as for example with positive energy channelling...

I heard that the kids of people who move to Hermea are half-lizard too. Maybe there's just no way through this without getting lizardy.

Well look at where questing for the sky got you! I bet whoever lives in the darklands now doesn’t have to deal with shadows at all. 

Oh, we should ask Torag for help then. Great Torag, lead this humble mortal to The Sky, such as for example with positive energy channelling...

That's actually a great idea! Everyone should pray to the gods they feel closest to and ask for cleric casting! Even if it didn't work earlier or if you weren't ready to devote your lives earlier, the numbers are different on both sides of the equation.

Hey, that was my idea first! Why are you trying to steal my idea?

Whoah, what about people who feel close to an evil god? They won’t be able to turn undead at all. So pray to the god you feel closest to, unless you’re evil, then pray to a good one instead. 

That's actually a great idea! Everyone should pray to the gods they feel closest to and ask for cleric casting! Even if it didn't work earlier or if you weren't ready to devote your lives earlier, the numbers are different on both sides of the equation.

...Hm. Alright. 

There are some gods which she feels mostly aligned with, and she's asked them to cleric her before - most saliently when she first became Field Marshall. She didn't expect them to do it, and they didn't; it's rare for powerful fighters to get cleric circles, it adds less to their capabilities than clericing someone young and inexperienced would. 

Still, it's worth checking to see if the gods still agree with that logic.

Abadar, Torag, Jaidi, Erastil... any takers?

The gods are probably busy fighting all the shadows right now!

If we all pray to them it'd be distracting, we should just leave them to it

Nope. She didn't expect it to work and it didn't.

Wait we shouldn’t all pray to become clerics, what use will a bunch of first circle clerics be? We need to all pray to make one guy a cleric, so he can cast miracle to hallow the city. 

We should teach everyone wizardry. Half the population is smart enough to hang cantrips, right? Probably more now that all the stupid ones got eaten. We could just take down all the shadows with a barrage of rays of frost.

This is why we need a mandatory hour of prayer! If this works you have to credit me first, you know.

We can't learn wizardy in a week, we'll have starved by then.

Maybe you can’t learn wizardry in a week. If I knew how to read, I bet I could learn it in a day!

Exactly. Besides, what would be the point in spending so much money on the Academae if it couldn't even teach people to be wizards?

Yeah! If there’s ever a time for them to stop hoarding their magic and share it with everyone, it’s now. 

Then we're settled?

We'll all enrol at the Academae and ask for training to be wizards, and we'll go hungry until next week when we'll probably have gotten to fifth circle and can all teleport out by ourselves.

And anyone who can't do that is just a lazy bum who deserves to starve.

People become powerful best under pressure, right? So now's the best time to study wizardry, really.

I thought wizards become more powerful by fighting. So once we get a few spells, we can fight the shadows to get more. 

When you turn into a shadow, is it just your soul?

I mean, does your body get left behind intact?

We've got tonnes of fresh meat piled up on the streets above us, why would we be going hungry?

If you eat human meat Urgathoa turns you into a zombie. Everyone knows that.

all zombies are cannibals is not the same as all cannibals are zombies.

Everyone in Mwangi eats human meat and they're not all zombies, just the ones in Geb.

What's a Mwangi? Also, Hermea??

You turn into a ghoul, actually, not a zombie. And Pharasma does it, not Urgathoa.

Pharasma does not turn people into ghouls.

Suggesting cannibalism 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

[derisively] There's no such thing as a secret cleric. If Someone clerics you, you know.

You only turn into a ghoul if a ghoul eats you.

If you eat the ghoul though it's perfectly safe.

Don't be stupid. If there was a cleric of Urgathoa here, the shadows would be reporting to them.

If no one else is going to say it: we don't have the teleport capacity to waste it shuttling corpses.

also i thought geb was a person, not a place?

By the powers Urgathoa has granted me, I hereby order all Shadows to depart!

See, nothing happened, so clearly I'm not an Urgathoan.

Uh, if there was - hypothetically - and I'm not naming any names - certainly none of my relations - secretly a cleric of Urgathoa in the vault... would they be able to get the shadows to report to them?

HEY. HEY. EVERYONE LISTEN TO THIS.

Urgathoa's always trying to corrupt clerics of other gods, right? And the more powerful the cleric the better?

What if Arbiter Zenderholm forsook Abadar and asked Urgathoa for salvation? Then SHE could command the shadows!

She's, like, a 5th-circle cleric. I bet Urgathoa would snap that right up.

Zenobia Zenderholm: That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my life.

That sounds like a dangerous plan, if it doesn't work we lose a powerful cleric.

She should ask Abadar in a Commune tomorrow if she should forsake Abadar for Urgathoa

I think they've got a point there. But isn't Reebs a higher circle cleric? Make him do it.

No it doesn't count as being corrupted if you're already Evil, it has to be a Good cleric to work

She could be corrupting him from law to chaos! Or at least, like, a somewhat slimier form of neutrality.

Abadar's neutral, idiots. Maybe talk to the Caydenite architect? He had a pretty solid resume, he's probably just pretending to be lower level than he is.

Urgathoa can’t corrupt Reebs, he’s already evil. That’s why evil is the most trustworthy alignment; you never know when good or neutral might fall, but evil’s already there.

I'm noting, just for the record, that I could be LN and you wouldn't be able to tell, because of my Cleric aura.

I have plausible deniability here.

We've got wizards who can bind outsiders, right?

If Urgathoa wants a really Good sacrifice, we should just call a bunch of angels and sacrifice them to Her to make the shadows go away

Perfect, you should start praying then.

It should be agathions. They're meatier.

If we can summon angels, we don’t need to sacrifice them. We can just ask them to cast miracle and hallow the city, like the original plan before you all went evil.

Hey guys, I've got it!

Urgathoa likes it when you turn to Evil, and Sarenrae likes it when you're redeemed and turn to Good.

So if we flip back and forth really fast we can get infinite virtue points and ask for infinite miracles!

Toff Ornelos can summon Pit Fiends and get wishes out of 'em, that's like summoning angels.

That wouldn't work, stupid. Sarenrae would just destroy the city if we asked her for a miracle.

Hey guys, I've got it!

Urgathoa likes it when you turn to Evil, and Sarenrae likes it when you're redeemed and turn to Good.

So if we flip back and forth really fast we can get infinite virtue points and ask for infinite miracles!

No, seriously. The cheap archons are balls of light. The cheap angels are helmets. The cheap azatas are mostly butterfly wing. The cheap agathions are cats, which have some actual flesh. Plus they belong to Nirvana and Nirvana is a bunch of softies who could probably send us volunteers or something.

The fact that all of you are talking like this is why we deserved to fall to shadows in the first place.

How powerful is it when Sarenrae smites a city?

If we provoke her wrath, but we're all hiding inside a vault underground, maybe the divine Smite will kill all the shadows but not manage to reach us

I don't want to be eaten by shadows or zombie Ornher Reebs. Nor Sarenrae!!

It was one time! Why does no one think of all the other miracles Sarenrae did for us. Like creating the sun, without it we’d have no safety from the shadows at all.

I would definitely not want to be eaten by Sarenrae, I bet she cooks you first.

I'd rather be eaten by something that cooks me first.

Exactly! Like I was saying, we should get a gold dragon to come here.

I don't want to be eaten by shadows or zombie Ornher Reebs.

That's pure genius!

Undead are immune to negative energy based attacks, so we can't be turned into Shadows if we just pick a better undead and turn ourselves into that first.

What's the coolest kind of undead? Vampires, right? Fetch one vampire by teleport and we'll all be immortal by morning.

Golds get miracle as a SPA, too. No need for diamonds.

Look, this whole mess only happened because we were all crammed into this city like sardines, and if you had any sense you'd be getting us all out of here and into the countryside, not working on some fool task like fortifying the vault. If one shadow gets in here, we're all dead, but if we're spread out on the surface they can't get all of us!

What's the coolest kind of undead? Vampires, right? Fetch one vampire by teleport and we'll all be immortal by morning.

This is a good plan, but can be improved with a Helm of Opposite Alignment. Say hello to Korvosa the CG vampire den!

We'll all be immortal until morning, more like.

Golds get miracle as a SPA, too. No need for diamonds.

If that was true a gold dragon would have already miraculously teleported everyone into it's mouth, and all the worlds money into it's vault.

Yep, Sarenrae isn’t letting you get away that easy. Praise the sun!

They're lawful, though. I bet there's a law that says you can't use miracles to eat people unless you're Urgathoa.

Look, this whole mess only happened because we were all crammed into this city like sardines, and if you had any sense you'd be getting us all out of here and into the countryside, not working on some fool task like fortifying the vault. If one shadow gets in here, we're all dead, but if we're spread out on the surface they can't get all of us!

That's a good segue into, uh, the next item on our docket! Setting aside the... relative palatability of archons and azatas, there are 200,000 Korvosans up there and we need some way to protect them.

If that was true a gold dragon would have already miraculously teleported everyone into it's mouth, and all the worlds money into it's vault.

Golds don't typically eat people but we can fix that with a Helm of Opposite Alignment too!

Also it says in the setting doc that Spell-Like Abilities typically still require their expensive material components.

If that was true a gold dragon would have already miraculously teleported everyone into it's mouth, and all the worlds money into it's vault.

1st clerics can all channel. That's all we need, two hundred thousand new clerics.

Caydenite, what's your real level? Are you willing to turn to Urgathoa if that's what it takes to save us?

If there’s that many of them, maybe we can each only do a daily half-hour of prayer and it’ll still be enough.

We should just tell them to kill themselves first. Since they're committing suicide to prevent a shadow apocalypse, it's a good deed and they'll all make heaven anyway.

I've never gotten the chance to forsake the Goodly Gods in pursuit of the greater good, so sure, I'd do that if it'd help. I don't think it would, though.

Why not an hour of prayer? What are you doing down here that you need an extra half hour for, anyway? Seems suspicious.

I just want to register how impressed I am that you can do all these different voices.

I thought the council scene would be boring and boy was I wrong.

You just have to pick the right god to pray to. Spending an hour praying to Calistria isn't that big a sacrifice, if you get what I mean.

Shadows only come out in the night time, right? So we just need to stop the sun and make sure it stays overhead all the time.

Clerics have to pray for an hour to get spells, so you have to pray for an hour to become a cleric.

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!

Isn't there a spell called Time Stop? We could cast it at noon and walk away

Shadows only come out in the night time, right? So we just need to stop the sun and make sure it stays overhead all the time.

Which we could do with Miracle!

Really what we need to do is make a second sun. Suns are like holes into the positive energy plane, right, so we just need a Gate into there up in the sky.

All of Golarion's probably gonna fall to the shadowplague soon, Abadar basically said so.

But they can't survive sunlight.

So what we need to do is

We get a Gate

And we Gate

To the Sun!

Oh, sweet Sarenrae, let us all feel Your sun's light upon our face and hands this day and forevermore, also please make me your cleric before that so I can kill all the shadows...

That plan is terrible. We'd need protection from fire first, and we don't have enough spell slots to give everyone protection from fire.

You just have to pick the right god to pray to. Spending an hour praying to Calistria isn't that big a sacrifice, if you get what I mean.

There was a feat in 3.5 called Faerie Mysteries Initiate that let you get INT instead of CON to HP.

Also it doesn't address the countryside! We need to build a second sun and we need to build it here. Well. Not here. Above the surface.

Reebs is an Asmodean, so he's going to Hell no matter what.

But the rest of us can still be saved from damnation.

If we kill ourselves or eachother thats a sin, and if the shadows get us we turn evil and that's a sin.

But if Ornher Reebs murders us all our souls are still pure and we can go to Heaven!

Guys, this one time I was stationed at the worldwound in Crusader's Fort and they had a sorcerer from Holomog who was backing the fort with some kind of positive energy rift! The commander made some faces about it but it seemed to work. We should bug Holomog.

No you idiots, if you want to get Sarenrae's favor you have to tell Her you're planning to save and redeem the people, not kill the shadows! The killing the shadows can happen of course but it has to be incidental

Sure. Why don't you go die right now and let the rest of us get back to planning.

If you get exposed to too much positive energy your soul explodes. It's not worth it.

Is creating a second sun within the purview of miracle? And, if it is, would it stop the shadows from going out and about? Or would they brave the light anyway when they got hungry enough?

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.

Yog-sothoth is a really powerful god of travel, right? We should sacrifice to him and see if he helps with this, since we're teleport-constrained. I hear he likes weird mutant babies.

"You cannot teleport a star."

"Of course they can't, they're not a wizard."

Why is this her life.

Yeah I get that this guy on Jasoom said stars were really big but that's because he didn't have magic so he didn't realize stars worked by being positive energy thingies. I think we should at least try seeing if someone can carry one.

Yog-Sothoth isn't evil!

What if, instead of teleporting a star, we just summoned a star child? I'm pretty sure that's the kind of thing wizards can do, I heard that once.

Shadows can talk, right?

Did anybody try asking them to go away?

Like have we actually tried just asking?

It's weird that we're resorting to everything else first.

Stars have kids?

What, has nobody explained to you the birds and the bees yet? Go home and let the adults talk.

If everyone's too attached to their kids we should totally go back to the lizard-person plans, that gives us plenty of weird babies to sacrifice soon! Nobody will want a lizard baby

Arbiter Zenderholm, can we set it up so Yog-Sothoth helps us now and we owe It the babies later?

Druids can do Speak with Animal and shadows are kind of animalistic, right, is anyone around here a druid?

Cressida Kroft is somewhat regretting how she shooed Sahlara and Karralo out of the room. Sure, it was overcrowded. But, perhaps if Sahlara was here - and Karralo can't count that much against her - the sane people would better compare in proportion to all the raving lunatics?

Of course YuantiMatter wants to have weird reptilian kids.

That's not their name and yuan-ti aren't even a thing in Pathfinder. They weren't included in the OGL.

There is no way "Jasoom" is a real place.

Shadows can talk, right? Did anybody try asking them to go away? Like have we actually tried just asking? It's weird that we're resorting to everything else first.

Oh, my landlord's sister's youngest child tried that!

Didn't work.

Cressida Kroft is somewhat regretting how she shooed Sahlara and Karralo out of the room. Sure, it was overcrowded. But, perhaps if Sahlara was here - and Karralo can't count that much against her - the sane people would better compare in proportion to all the raving lunatics?

This isn't a numbers game, it's a "how fast can you talk" game.

The sane people have to think first, so they never had a chance.

Arbiter Zenderholm, can we set it up so Yog-Sothoth helps us now and we owe It the babies later?

In tones of abject despair: If you want a god of Travel, Abadar is literally right there.

Cayden, too.

Shadows can talk, right? Did anybody try asking them to go away? Like have we actually tried just asking? It's weird that we're resorting to everything else first.

If you want to talk to a shadow, that's easily enough arranged. Taupir, a reminder that all your preexisting orders remain in full effect.

Now say hello~

Uh, hello.

WHY DID YOU BRING ONE OF THOSE INTO THIS ROOM

Everyone run for it! Trampling people is okay, dying from being trampled is better than dying to a shadow!!

No, kill it! Ray of frost!

The sane people have to think first, so they never had a chance.

—GREAT PHARASMA PLEASE GRANT ME YOUR PROTECTION AGAINST THE UNDEAD RIGHT NOW IN THIS ROOM*

*cave

Uh, hello

Hi, do you know why all you guys have been killing everyone?

And is there anything we could do to convince you to go away, or else you can keep the city but let us walk out?

Oh, my landlord's sister's youngest child tried that!

Didn't work.

Well of course it didn't, if we're negotiating it won't be with the shadows directly, it'll be with the secret cleric of Urgathoa controlling them!

Maybe if we get everyone a piece of paper, and if you're the cleric of Urgathoa you write down your demands, and otherwise you leave it blank, and then we mix them up so nobody can tell who wrote -

OR SHE COULD JUST REVEAL HERSELF NOW I GUESS, THATS FINE THIS IS ALL FINE PLEASE DONT KILL ME

IF YOU BREAK MY SHADOW WHEN HE'S NOT EVEN FIGHTING BACK YOU WILL BE HIS REPLACEMENT

Hi, do you know why all you guys have been killing everyone?

And is there anything we could do to convince you to go away, or else you can keep the city but let us walk out?

There was this thing about killing all Korvosans, some people got creepily into it. Now I think people are mostly just hungry.

I don't have the level of... sway, we'll say, to let you out of the city.

I'm not really in charge... no, we'll intensify that. I'm really not in charge.

If this shadow isn't even important why are we talking with it? I don't negotiate with peasants.

Do you know a guy who does? Is there stuff you like eating besides people's strength?

...what if we pretended to not be Korvosans?

Orner Reebs did some Communes about stuff, remember? They like eating inferior people too.

There was this thing about killing all Korvosans, some people got creepily into it. Now I think people are mostly just hungry.

I don't have the level of... sway, we'll say, to let you out of the city.

Currently they won't get to eat any of us, and we'll all starve too inside the Vault. What if we agreed to let you eat half the Korvosans?

Brilliant. And then when they come to negotiate again we can offer them half again, and we can keep doing it forever because they'll never get to eat all of us.

I don't think Korvosans are infinitely divisible.

There's still food up there even as we're starving down here.

Since they can't eat flour and we can't* eat people, what if we agree to do a little trade? Then nobodies hungry.

*because we'd turn into ghouls

Can shadows carry flour sacks?

I don't think Korvosans are infinitely divisible

We just gotta reproduce faster than they kill us! Hey guy who was praying to Calistria, will she give us any miracles for that? Or Pharasma maybe, she likes both birth and death, right?

I'm looking at the sheet and it just has "-" for a strength score.

Does that mean they can't carry anything?

I think we want Lamashtu for that, not Calistria. So we should dig down to the abyss to talk to her.

We should find and kill that guy's brother. So he goes to Heaven.

Oh, is Lamashtu being down there the reason those Mendevians became lizard people, that makes sense 

Weren't we supposed to be talking about rescuing the people on the surface? I vote we raise an army to go save them, and then to make sure it works without them all getting killed we mount them on fast flying creatures and then make sure they have plenty of class levels. Ranger sounds ideal.

I doubt Lamashtu living in the underdark was what turned the Mendevians into lizard people.

Don't you start now too.

The lizard people are real.

Do we have any evidence at all that there's still people on the surface?

I'm pretty sure it's just us, but we can ask a shadow to check if we want to.

Is Mendev real? Are we sure?

Weren't we supposed to be talking about rescuing the people on the surface? I vote we raise an army to go save them, and then to make sure it works without them all getting killed we mount them on fast flying creatures and then make sure they have plenty of class levels. Ranger sounds ideal.

I expect this to be part of the solution. 

Dead people also show up to scrying.

Hey Taupir, go check if there are people left on the surface for us!

(The scrying result could be an illusion to get us to go up there anyway, can't trust it.)

If there's people on the surface what am I hiding down here for?

Let me through the door I'm going home.

Is there a god of... holding this all together and keeping these people alive despite all of their best efforts? Cressida Kroft is praying to that god for strength.

Pray to Cayden instead, He actually has the Strength domain.

Nobody takes the Strength domain.

I took the Strength domain.

Isn't this just a temporary problem anyway? You can use raise dead on shadow and it doesn't even take a diamond.

Where are we getting the flying mounts for the army? How much training does it take to ride something flying?

That's exactly what we need more clerics for!

To summon outsiders to ride?

Isn't this just a temporary problem anyway? You can use raise dead on shadow and it doesn't even take a diamond.

You're thinking of spectres, and it's impractical to pull off.

Where are we getting the flying mounts for the army? How much training does it take to ride something flying?

The Sable Company has hippogriffs, but they hoard them to themselves. Maybe Queen Ileosa can nationalize them!

Yes. She could seize the hippogriffs. And. Distribute them to all of the state's best hippogriff-riding archers.

That's not fair. I shouldn't miss out on a hippogriff because of incompetence.

It should be a random lottery.

Not a random lottery - all the Hippogriffs would go to commoners then. We should auction off tickets.

Obviously I'd distribute the hippogriffs to my loyalists? Who do you people take me for??

You have that many loyalists?

If we action them it'll all go to the nobles!

We should do a fair three-way split, half to loyalists, half to an auction, half to a lottery!

Let's organize a public festival featuring a hippogriff archery contest! Recruit the best soldiers and raise morale all at once!

We all get a turn on a hippogriph and whoever kills the most shadows gets to keep it!

Hang on, no, it's paladins who get horses. All the Lawful Good people should ask to be made paladins instead of clerics.

Personally I think using hippogriphs is a little gauche. It's already our national animal, surely we could pick something else for our cavalry like a gryphon or a pegasus?

We all get a turn on a hippogriph and whoever kills the most shadows gets to keep it!

There's got to be a better way than killing all the shadows. Oh, I've got it!

If everyone was turned into a shadow, there wouldn't be any conflict!

Why do you people want to stay human anyway?

Would it be bad for morale if Kroft put her face in her hands and wept

It'd mean Kroft was visibly siding with the weaker "facepalm and weep" faction, despite the younger and more exxuberant "suggest lots of ideas" faction surging in support amongst those in the forum!

Definitely bad for her long term career, but that kind of decision making is why she's just a "former" marshall.

No, that wouldn't work at all. If we were all shadows, how would it be obvious who was innately superior? It's bad enough now where we can look and dress differently.

Vampire works too! 

Let's get a vampire all up in here!

Hang on, no, it's paladins who get horses. All the Lawful Good people should ask to be made paladins instead of clerics.

The horses don't fly though! Stick to the cleric plan, summoning flying outsiders is better

No, that wouldn't work at all. If we were all shadows, how would it be obvious who was innately superior? It's bad enough now where we can look and dress differently.

That's not really my cup of tea, but I'm telling you first hand that shadows don't have any trouble with it.

Excuse you, some of us earned our baronetcies.

Look, I don't know how to break it to you but all you shadows look the same.

Oh, the baronet is boasting of it? Some of us are actually peers.

Look, I don't know how to break it to you but all you shadows look the same.

If you spend a little time as a shadow, you'll find that the distinctions aren't that hard to pick out. Plus there's all this difference in how people talk and carry themselves.

And then there's also the hierarchical pyramid of mental domination.

What if we got a bunch of ghost touch swords, and then gave them to shadows who used to be members of the guard? That way since shadows can't hurt each other with their claws they could go kill all the shadows at no risk.

...That's not a bad idea, though replace "used to be members of the Guard" with "are under the control of a wizard or cleric."

If everyone was turned into a shadow, there wouldn't be any conflict!

If your brother was having trouble I don't think it would work out too well, most everyone here seems to be less intelligent than the average four-year-old.

You guys are getting ghost touch swords??

If your brother was having trouble I don't think it would work out too well, most everyone here seems to be less intelligent than the average four-year-old.

I feel like a evolutionary biologist cataloguing new and intriguing varieties of subhuman ape.

You think evolution is real?

...I think it's an intriguing theory...

Of course evolution is real. How else do you explain shadows becoming greater shadows when they win enough fights?

Aram Zey thinks evolution is real. And just when I thought he couldn't get any dumber!

Of course evolution is real. How else do you explain shadows becoming greater shadows when they win enough fights?

The evolutionists would have you believe that their increased strength is bestowed upon their every spawn!

Maybe some of the people here evolved from apes. Mine were created by Torag. …but that's off-topic. Can we get a shadow under our control to channel positive energy somehow? Alchemists can make unstable potions for free, right, maybe we can have a shadow going around throwing alchemist healing potions at the enemy shadows? It'd take a while but it doesn't cut into our teleports or such.

You guys are getting ghost touch swords??

It's the start of a good idea, at any rate, though Cressida Kroft somewhat despairs of hammering out the details in this format.

Oh great Milani, grant that shadow over there the power to overthrow its brethren, by making it (him?) a first circle cleric...

A shadow that could channel positive energy would be really useful here, yeah. The other shadows would never see it coming.

Isn't the queen a bard? She could make all the weapons ghost touch, bards can do that.

Sheer foolishness! The shadow would damage itself with every channel!

Isn't the queen a bard? She could make all the weapons ghost touch, bards can do that.

My powers are clearly beyond your ken.

Great! The shadows are dumber than they were as people, they'll never see it coming.

I guess you have a point regarding energy channels.

What we need to do is get a shadow witch with the healing hex, that's single-target but unlimited-usage. The only witch patron I can think of who cares about Golarion is Baba Yaga, so I would suggest we send someone to Irrisen to ask Elvanna to petition her about it, but I'm open to suggestions.

All witches actually work for demons, that'll never work. And how do you know so much about them anyway?

I love a witch burning as much as the next person, but I haven't died yet and am not going out by asphyxiation. No Fire In The Vault.

We don't need a witch anyway. Evil human clerics don't hurt themselves when they channel negative energy, so asking Milani to cleric a shadow will work fine.

Guys, we should all pray to Alseta and ask her to grant us a shadowproof door! Or maybe she has an outsider we can summon who is a door, she's a goddess of doors, she must!

There was the shadowbox idea, that people forgot about for some reason.
I don't know if a box shadows can't escape from can be made.
I do know that if we manage to lure a lot of shadows into the same place, we can kill them with an area effect. Very strong channeling from a cleric, and several fireballs, or other area spells. You can't gather thousands of people in the range of fireball, but shadows are incorporeal, so they can all be in one place without taking any place!
They are fast, and will escape if they survive, so it has to be a well-synchronized attack by several casters, to ensure all of them die immediately.
Probably wouldn't work on all shadows in the city, but maybe like, a thousand at a time? And then we do it 6 or 8 more times!

Or maybe you can kill them all with swords. But it will certainly take much longer!

There is no way "Jasoom" is a real place.

Jasoom is where Baba-Yaga is from. Also they have an eternal war where after you die, they pull your soul into a jar and that jar into a construct, so you have to keep fighting. Terrible place.

Would it be bad for morale if Kroft put her face in her hands and wept?

If there happens to be in the room a Lawful Good or Lawful Neutral cleric with the Loyalty subdomain, and they happen to roll high enough Sense Motive to notice or deduce the state Cressida is in (if not its intensity), they will silently tap her with Touch of Loyalty for +4 against fear (also charms and compulsions, but that's less important) for an hour. It's at least something.

They are fast, and will escape if they survive, so it has to be a well-synchronized attack by several casters, to ensure all of them die immediately.
Probably wouldn't work on all shadows in the city, but maybe like, a thousand at a time? And then we do it 6 or 8 more times!

Guys, all of these "solutions" which boil down to "kill all of the shadows" are making me really uncomfy. 

What did shadows ever do to any of you?

They killed my my landlord's sister's youngest child! And my landlord. And my sister.

So what? They killed me too and you don't see me complaining about it.

If everyone forgives the shadows, they'll disappear! I heard it works on ghosts.

If we tell the Shadows about the healing light of Sarenrae, they'll find redemption and turn back into people! I heard it works on tieflings.

If everyone forgives the shadows, they'll disappear! I heard it works on ghosts.

That's actually the secret to Geb's persistence. Whenever his old greatest foe gets bored or dead or whatever, he finds someone else with Mythic Ranks to piss off.

We should Sending Geb and convince him that the leader of the shadows would be suuuuper pissed off if he saved us and destroyed them all!

See? I told you Geb was a person!

So what? They killed me too and you don't see me complaining about it.

[If a certain cleric of Gruhastha was present, he may have attempted to explain why you shouldn't do to people things they value not happening, even if you wouldn't care in their place, and logically justify it from first principles.
He is not present, and the shadow is probably not smart enough to understand any of that anyway.]

Wow. I have never ever seen a shadow insult someone's smarts, and somehow we're the rude ones?

Who is "Gruhastha"? Is it actually a demon?

[The commentary insulted the shadow's smarts. The cleric commented about never would, he genuinely believes in everyone's potential.
On an unrelated note, being able to feel insulted is a character flaw, git good.]

Not feeling insulted means you're weak and inviting people to trample on. I'm not Chelish but I know that much!

I'm the only Chellish person in this room.

HOW DARE

Except maybe Reebs.

See? Ileosa knows how things work.

What if we flood the tunnels with acid? Or alchemist fire, and then light it? Like, the whole tunnel so that they can't fly above it.

Does fire hurt shadows? I know it hurts humans.^{[citation needed]}

Fire hurts shadows, but we're pretty durable! That part of being a shadow is actually really fun.

What if we summoned some fire elementals? That's easy, right?

Good idea, we could use them to make the caves less chilly.

To fight the shadows!!!

I'm all in favor of the caves being warmer, but I don't see how that would hurt the shadows.

To send... to the surface... to fight shadows... because fire hurts shadows, and fire elementals aren't real people so shadows can't hurt them.

When someone else steals my idea in half an hour and everyone likes it I will hold personally you accountable for the discrepancy.

Okay everyone listen up!

There were 18,000 Korvosans yesterday, that's about how many shadows we need to kill.

> "The touch of an Allip deals 1d4 points of Wisdom damage (DC 15 Will negates). A successful critical hit causes 1d4 points of Wisdom damage and 1 point of Wisdom drain (instead of double Wisdom damage). With each successful attack, an allip gains 5 temporary hit points. The save DC is Charisma-based."

They're immune to the strength damage of Shadows and fly at the same speed and are just as incorporeal. Otherwise they're about as powerful.

Shadows average 12 wisdom, so it'll take an average of 4 hits to take one down, but they'll miss sometimes and need to chase them down, call if 10 rounds. Once they've got no wisdom theyll fall unconscious. So we can get rid of 1440 shadows in a full day per Allip, so we need about 14 of them to defeat the shadowplague. We can easily control that many undead at once, with the wizards we have.

> "Those who fall prey to madness and take their own lives sometimes find themselves lost on the path to the afterlife, trapped in a state between life and death. These unfortunates, known as allips, suffer from the violent and incurable insanity they faced in life and take out their terror, confusion, and rage upon the living."

It says that in this book I found. If we pick 14 Korvosans who are already pretty mad with grief already, we can use some extra magical help to goad them into killing themselves, and then control the resulting Allips and make them kill all the shadows.

What's an 'allip'. Are they secretly demons. That all sounds like they're definitely demons.

We should not create more undead to save us from the undead! We should just pray to Pharasma to help!

Shadows can't hurt each other, what makes you think allips could hurt the shadows?

Shadows can't hurt eachother because they do strength damage and don't have a strength score!

But they do have a wisdom score! It says so in the beastiary!

We should not create any more undead. We should totally find a place somewhere that already has allips, and bring them here. It can't be that hard of a task for a couple of extremely powerful wizards.

[Cressida noises to the general effect of asking a wizard whether the allip plan would work, learning that it would work, being concerned that the allips could be grappled and pinned by shadows if the shadows are coordinated enough, asking the shadow if they're coordinated enough, learning that they might be (hierarchical mind control is useful for coordinating, and also shadows are good at pack tactics), deciding that it's still another highly useful tool to add to the toolbox and a component of the Eventual Plan.]

And when the shadows have been rendered comatose through Wisdom damage, instead of summarily executing them you should have a cleric plane shift them to Nirvana!

(Where's "Nirvana?")

(oh okay)

They can't go to Nirvana, they're not dead yet!

They're kind of dead. I mean, they're so dead they're undead. That's probably dead enough to go to Nirvada.

But they're evil! They're definitely too Evil to go to Nevada.

Shadows murdered my family. I'd rather go to Hell than see a single one of them in Nirvana.

What about the shadows that used to be your family, you slack-jawed fucking moron?

It's because of people like you the shadows are still around! If everyone forgives them, they're gone!

Anyway, if we're going to try getting a shadow clericed, we definitely need to pray to Black Butterfly about it, because she's a good deity who's a shadow.

Wait, what?

Uh, when Desna was placing the stars she created a pattern of spaces between the stars and a butterfly formed there who's her shadow.

Wait, hold on. If it takes Desna to place the stars, then having a wizard bring over a star with us by teleport definitely won't work.

We just need to pick smaller stars. Gods fight demons but we fight demons too, just smaller ones.