Some scholars say that a shadow's very essence is gluttony and greed. This is misleading; while all shadows hunger, few overeat.

Golarion being what it is, there are more than a dozen catalogued varieties of undead shadow, each with their own unique characteristics. Some feed on Intelligence, or make two attacks a round, or have sorcerous magicks. But in the main, undead shadows are created in two ways. Rarely, Evil souls shirk Pharasma's judgement to linger instead on Golarion. Else:

Melee incorporeal touch +4 (1d6 Strength damage)

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.

Shadows have existed for a long time, and most people aren't shadows yet, from which we infer most shadows which exist haven't eaten anyone.

This demands explanation.

It's not that the shadows aren't hungry. Everyone agrees that they are. It's not that they aren't capable; shadows are far deadlier than humanoids.

Golarion's incurious scholars recite that shadows are uncomfortable in direct sunlight (sunlight harms shadows not one whit) and wide open spaces (shadows, being incorporeal, can cross open spaces beneath the surface of the ground[1]). With that mystery satisfyingly answered, they go on to explain that shadows, as undead horrors, have no discernible motivations save to sap vitality from living beings, that passing centuries means almost nothing to shadows, and that "none can say what shadows do or think in the long wait between victims."

(One wonders whether Golarion's wise sages ever thought to ask why shadows haven't overrun the drow in lightless Sekemina, or interview one the many civilized shadows Geb counts among its aristocracy[2].)

Golarion's intelligentsia came of age in a world where shadows have never eaten a major city. To them it feels like an entirely normal state of affairs. The sun rises in east, sets in the west, and shadows aren't a major threat. A gorgon is scarier than a shadow, but gorgons don't attack walled cities. Does that need a special explanation? Any who realize that there is need for an answer at all quickly find one that satisfies them, and don't spontaneously ask themselves whether their answer explains too much or too little.

The speculation of Golarion's scholars makes for thin gruel. What is observed is that many shadows rarely move far from where they spawned. Not because they're location-bound; some elect instead to roam about or become eighth-circle wizards named Ganderhall who menace Andoran.[3] But most of them don't like to travel far. This small mercy is paired with a greater one: historically, shadows that do move about have been haunted by extremely bad luck. Especially if they accidentally wander somewhere a shadowpocalypse would radically change the setting.

-

1. Keeping a finger in contact with the surface.↩

2. Pathfinder Campaign Setting: The Inner Sea, page 77 ↩

3. Cheliax, Empire of Devils, page 45 ↩

Relations between Shoanti and Korvosans – testy at the best of times – have substantially soured in recent months. The politics are complicated and – to this warpriest – frankly uninteresting. King Eodred Arabasti of Korvosa offered an ultimatum which the Sun Shamans cannot accept. In fourteen calender days, they will be at war.

(Or perhaps King Eodred, as many hope and expect, is nothing but bluster. But if in attacking Korvosa this warpriest commits litigious Little Cheliax to fight the fight it threatened, Gorum would not count it against him.)

This particular little shadow was once a Shoanti girl.

It hurts to remember how she squandered it.

So many pretty things! Jewelry and blankets and whittled horses Ooljee could hold and turn in her corporeal hands. She knew enough to desire them, but never thought to guard them jealously forever.

She had family and friends who ran and yelled and she never drained a one of them. So many chances to feed on humans and she let them slip through her fingers.

It hurts to remember. She makes up stories instead. And little tunes she sings to herself. Counts the seasons. Swims in the earth like a fish. Sometimes she thinks about leaving her ruin. Actually, she does that one a lot.

Centuries pass one minute at a time.

Undead that fail their saves fall under your control, obeying your commands to the best of their ability, as if under the effects of control undead.

This spell enables you to control undead creatures for a short period of time. You command them by voice and they understand you, no matter what language you speak. Even if vocal communication is impossible, the controlled undead do not attack you. At the end of the spell, the subjects revert to their normal behavior.

Intelligent undead creatures remember that you controlled them, and they may seek revenge after the spell’s effects end.

While he's already in the neighborhood, might as well grab two. Command Undead the feat only lets him control one shadow at a time, but he's also got command undead the spell.

Three hundred years ago – Year 4407 Absolom Reckoning, in the Age of Enthronement – ascendant Cheliax built Fort Korvosa on a small island where the Jeggare river reaches the sea.

Then Cheliax fell to anarchy and civil war, leaving staid Korvosa alone in savage Varisia. Egorian sold itself to Hell, forsook Chelish Nidal, and still can't reign in mob ruled Isarn and Almas.

Of Cheliax, Korvosa remains.

The small state is beset on all sides by enemies. Assailed by barbaric Shoanti raiders, traitorous Magnimar, criminal Riddleport, chaotic Kaer Maga, horrors and Nidalese that spill across the border, unconstant holdings in constant need of attending, festering Old Korvosa burning like an ulcer in the great city's belly, mainland Korvosa hopes still to be here when and if Cheliax comes to its senses.

Until then, no help is coming. They will survive by their own powers or not at all.

This[1] is the most complete map of all Korvosa, and leaves out few places of interest to us.

-

1. With gratitude to the redditor who made it.↩

Most Korvosans live crowded above first-floor stores or businesses in townhouses that share at least one wall with the neighbors.[1] Atop these conjoined dwellings sprawl the Shingles, Korvosa's unofficial eighth district: a layer of tents and ramshackle huts, thickest above Bridgefront, that add a third or fifth story to the city's walkable roofs.

You can cross the crowded city without touching a single cobbled road, and many do, Shingle running to beat the crowds or avoid the Guard.

-

1. Guide to Korvosa, page 3.↩

You could look at most of Korvosa as essentially one building - a megadungeon.

Streets are connecting hallways, but rooms are also connected by secret passages, attic windows, and simple proximity. Adventurers in dungeons rely on stone shape and their Insistent Doorknockers to flummox dungeon builders, and the most hated dungeon monster is that which ignores walls. A shadow on the hunt can search every room of a townhouse within a single round.

Earth's early cities had a problem where the whole damn thing would go periodically up in cinders. This is a smaller problem in Korvosa, where they magically control the weather. Earth's cities had or have problems with rats. Again less so in Korvosa, where they enchant rodents with magic pipes and march them into the sea[1]. (Disease, though, is a problem which Korvosa struggles to solve at scale[2].) What fire has in common with rats and smallpox is that it spreads exponentially wherever humans densely congregate.

At last census, Korvosan households were broken down as follows[3]:

  d%         Encounter            Avg EL

01–04        Lives alone                1/3

05–12        Household of 2          1/2

13–25        Household of 3            1

26–40        Household of 4            1

41–54        Household of 5            2

55–68        Household of 6            3

69–00        Household of 7+      Varies

-

1. Source: I made it up.↩

2. Curse of the Crimson Throne, Seven Days to the Grave.

3. Inspired by the 1790 US Census.↩

If you were a shadow and wanted to maximize the damage you did Korvosa, ideally you would swim up the Jeggare River, beneath the North Bridge, and attack Midland at the West Dock.

Ooljee was instead directed to attack at Bridgefront; shadows aren't known to be clever and the warpriest didn't want to overcomplicate things. Attacking Old Korvosa is a calculated risk: as it's separated from mainland Korvosa by the Narrows of Saint Alika, there's a chance Korvosa successfully quarantines the island. But targeting the Heights seems likely to draw a prompt and strong response, and South Shore is near to the Gray. And the Narrows are, well, narrow. He'll count on the shadows to cross it.

She isn't stupid, you know.

Agree to disagree.

I won't be disrespected like this.

We can measure Intelligence with detect thoughts and yours is objectively six.

Six of what?

It's generally accepted that INT score corresponds in some way to the thing which is measured by IQ tests, and AD&D said outright that INT and IQ were one and the same, but no edition of D&D or Pathfinder has ventured an official opinion on what it means to have 6 INT or 18.[1]

The concrete anchors we have: creatures with less than 3 INT can't learn language. And 10 (technically 10.5) is the human average. You can draw a straight line through any two points, but gamers have been arguing over how the INT curve should curve for 50 years and there's nothing like a consensus.

There are three methods with the legitimacy to mention, and happily they give fairly similar results in the case of 6 INT:

-

1. If you've seen an unsourced table on d20pfsrd.com which says things like "dull-witted or slow, often misuses and mispronounces words" and have mistaken it for being from something other than a random blogger's blog, well, the table is actually from a random blogger's blog.↩

The first method was printed in the Sage Advice column of Dragon Magazine:

Multiply your INT score by 10. That's your IQ.

Advantages: this is the most official answer we'll ever get for any system of Dungeons & Dragons, not that it is by any stretch official.

Disadvantages: it is uncompromisingly batshit insane. (Also the average 3d6 person has 105 IQ.)

Using this method the average shadow has IQ 60 (technically 65).

The second method: players and NPCs allegedly roll 3d6 for their ability scores, which forms a bell curve. IQ is also a bell curve, so take the one and match it to the other, easy like Sunday morning.

Advantages: if you’re rolling 3d6 for stats, characters are as likely to have a given INT score as Earth humans from Earth are. 

Disadvantages: by this method a wolf has like 50 IQ, and if the upper end of ability scores aren’t as completely nutty, wizards can still get 220+.

Using this method the average shadow has about 80 IQ.

Method three: average INT is 10 which mostly corresponds to 100 IQ, NPCs have less variable ability scores than they’d get from the 3d6 method (I'm not sure whether this applies to printed monsters, who for unmodified stats use an array with three 10s and three 11s), every point of INT is about half a standard deviation along the bell curve but INT doesn’t particularly track intelligence especially as you get into the tails.

Disadvantages: this doesn’t square with any in-game construct.

Advantages: it often gives less nutty answers than the two above and is the convention on glowfic dot com.

By this method the average shadow has IQ 70 (77.5?).

So shadows have an average of 70 IQ, abouts. Or a little higher.

What does that mean?

It's hard to say.

When humans think of stupid people they think of children, else adults with brain damage or severe disabilities.

Adult chimpanzees have better working memory than adult humans[1], let alone a human with enough brain damage that it isn't clear who has the higher Intelligence. Wolves are dumber than human toddlers across many dimensions, but seem faster to process their surroundings and have far better pack tactics. 70 IQ children from demographics that do poorly on IQ tests are socially more adept than 70 IQ children from groups with average 100 IQ[2].

Shadows are not human children. Nor disabled human adults. They are adult shadows, with racial bonuses to Wisdom and Charisma. Shadows are slow learners, and bad reasoners. In humans that correlates with slurred speech, emotional incontinence, poor impulse control, poor communication and leadership ability, an inability to keep track of one's environment, to react quickly and decisively.

Shadows aren't geniuses at grand strategy. (At least, not most of them. Some are eighth-circle wizards.)

But they aren't at all hurting for solid horse sense and the ability to work well in groups.

-

1. https://humanbenchmark.com/tests/chimp ↩

2. https://twitter.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1712174161521496434 ↩

Okay, fine, whatever.

If after opening the Bridgefront front you have the presence of mind to swim up the Jeggare and attack the West Dock, I won't stop you. But do Bridgefront first.

Understood?

Ooljee arrives unnoticed; she made her approach beneath the surface of ink-black water, and she is a shadow.

The attack will begin at midnight.

The decaying remains of Fort Korvosa still stand atop Garrison Hill of Endrin Island – rising above the slums of Old Korvosa.

Today the island is home to the city's poorest and most criminal.

Sidelined in 4489 when Magistrate Remsey Ornelos moved the civilian government of Fort Korvosa across the Narrows, irrelevant since losing the Cousin's War, the district clings to fastidious Korvosa like mold on a cheese. Those of Old Korvosa rarely burden themselves with such trifles as legality, morality, or compassion, and the Korvosan Guard is seldom welcome there...

Thankfully, as the Korvosan Guard keeps no vampires on the payroll it doesn't much matter whether we're welcome or not.

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.

Round Six (12:00:36)

Gosh, that sure would explain why shadows killed me. I’m a Korvosan.

Round Seven (12:00:42)

No, you're a shadow.

Kill all Korvosans.

Do it now.

Round Nine (12:00:54)

No, you don't have to kill her, she's a shadow. She's right there.

Hey! You also, you need to kill all Korvosans. You need to do it right now.

And if you see a shadow, tell them all shadows need to kill all Korvosans, and they need to do it right now.

Round Ten (12:01:00)

Little Ali Andri is harder to onboard. Unlike the second-circle cleric that sent her to Korvosa, Ooljee can't cast share language. Ali may have an adult shadow's raw INT, WIS, and CHA, or he may not - no one has made a study of this. Either way, higher mental ability scores don't automatically confer language proficiency.

Ooljee wants to skulk off and swim the Jeggare, but first should make sure the Andris don't mess anything up.

They leave Ali there, alone and confused. None can say what shadows do in the long wait between victims, but some of them probably cry.

It has been one minute since midnight.

The people of Bridgefront look out for one another; somebody has to and no one else will. Renting a suite in the same building lives Tavian Gael, 44, ex-Sczarni middle-aged Ranger 2 / Rogue 1. Startled from his sleep, he collects his kukris, an oil-burning lantern, his two teenage sons (Human Commoner 1, fifteen and seventeen years old, armed with a heavy sticks – Tavian didn’t want his kids to live the thug life and thus far they have obliged him), and promises the wife and younger kids the three will be right back.

He’s on the scene in less than a minute. He dreads what he’ll find on the other side of that door, but he’s not deeply afraid: even if it's as deadly a thing as a choker and even if it gets a tentacle around him, he’d bet on his killing it before it kills him.

Of course, it's easy to get unlucky. Which is why if the Andris are dead and it’s something scarier than the giant spider he’s expecting, they’ll all run away and be back with a bigger crowd or the Korvosan Guard.

Round 11 (12:01:06)

Tavian forces the door.

He's met by an esurient shadow the size of a puppy.

As ghost-type Pokemon with Levitate, shadows are immune to normal and fighting type attacks, as well as arena hazards. You can only scratch one with a magic weapon (which they take half damage from), or with acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic damage (which they also take half damage from). Force damage does full damage to them, and positive energy, but neither force spells nor positive energy tend to hit hard to begin with.

Even characters with class levels fear them, as armor is useless against them and shadows damage your strength score rather than hitpoints (your hitpoints increase with level, your strength usually doesn’t).

The great majority of people, if preyed upon by a shadow, can do nothing about it but die.

We can quantify this helplessness with the formula h(d+cd)/strength, where h is the shadow’s chance to hit, d is how much strength damage the shadow deals when it hits, c is the shadow’s chance of landing a critical hit, and strength is the victim’s strength score.

(In Pathfinder a critical hit must be confirmed before it can do double damage – hence why c is multiplied by h and d. Whether or not a critical is confirmed, a 20 on the d20 will always hit – but that’s not relevant to our calculations unless the target has a touch AC above 24. Honestly you'll probably get pretty similar results ignoring critical hits and using the simpler formula hd/strength.)

In ideal conditions, a human with 10 dexterity spending their turn on the “total defense” action has 14 AC. Against a shadow’s attack, they will on average take about 1.84 strength damage per round.

If the human has 10 strength, they last 6 rounds before dying – 36 seconds.

Most people don’t want to die. They want to escape.

Running is a full round action that provokes an attack of opportunity. As the shadow has a higher movement speed and can also run, it catches up to you every round and waits for its opportunity attack. Now instead of taking 6 rounds, the shadow does 2.205 damage a round and it gets the kill in 5.

Shadows are like wolves; you shouldn’t turn your back.

If we try to deny the shadow its AoOs by taking the withdraw action, we can only move twice our movement speed. The shadow can also move twice its movement speed – taking a full round action to charge. After ghosting over any difficult terrain and through any obstacles that could impede its straight path, it still gets to make an attack, now with a +2 circumstance bonus to hit. It hits on a four, for 2.94 roundly, for four rounds.

Conditions are rarely ideal.

Shadows are better at hide than humans are at seek. Spotting a shadow 80 feet away from you – near enough for it to charge in the surprise round – takes a perception check with a DC between 21 and 40.

Humans have to stop and open doors. Shadows don’t.

Humans are slowed to initiative 0 and thirty feet a round by a packed and panicked street. Shadows aren’t.

Pathfinder characters can only run given a straight course over unimpeded terrain. Lacking that, as they usually do, a fleeing character can choose to withdraw (and allow the shadow to charge them), or move half as quickly while provoking attacks of opportunity so they can spend their standard actions on total defense. (And the shadow could still charge, so it’d make more sense to withdraw).

Most people don’t have 10 strength, nor 10 dex.

About a third of Korvosans are over 35 years old, another third under 15[1]. Of Korvosa’s 16,000 humans, one thousand of them are infants or toddlers under three years.

Even a -1 age penalty to STR will cut a round off your expected lifespan if you stand and fight, and nearly two rounds on average if you run. A penalty to dexterity will cost you twelve seconds. If surprised by a shadow, the two thousand two hundred and sixty-two human Korvosans above the age of 53 will get one round to act.

-

1. https://www.census.gov/dataviz/visualizations/055/ ↩

One third of Korvosans are children. It’s a mixed bag. The young template gives -4 strength, but also +4 dex and a +1 size bonus from AC. Unfortunately they can’t benefit from their dexterity if surprised or while running or if in the dark. While withdrawing in a well-lit room against a shadow they’re aware of a human with the young template lasts an average of four rounds, but in practice they’ll usually last two.

Round 12 (12:01:12)

Tavian Gael wins initiative. By the light of the lantern, he sees Rodica and Ali stilled on the ground. Poberikender dead in bed. Ali hovers in the lantern’s shaking light, a shadow with no source.

“Run!” Tavian commands his spawn. “Find the guard!”

In the building next door, someone begins to scream. Elsewhere, others.

Tavian delays his turn, standing in the doorway, unwilling to flee past his slower sons.

Ali pounces. Tavian dodges.

Oljee, Poberikender, and Rodica each chose a different home to invade.

Referring back to our census data and rolling some dice, we find that Ooljee invaded a household of six, Poberikender a household of three, and Rodica a household of five.

Round 12 (12:01:12)

Old man Mauro Silanus (age 61, commoner 5) is standing in a dimly-lit bedroom trying to soothe his crying grandchildren so their parents can get some sleep. Lighting an oil lamp is like setting a silver coin on fire, but it’s good for nervous children who heard cries of terror from the abutting house.

He tells them that the monster can’t get them in here.

Ooljee attacks in the surprise round. She rolls a 10 on the d20, which will certainly hit him flat-footed. Rolls a 1 for the strength damage, though.

The old man wins initiative. Some people cringe when startled, others throw a punch – Mauro takes a swing at her. Unarmed attacks provoke AoOs; Ooljee rolls another 10, hits even though he’s fighting defensively. Rolls another 1 for strength damage, he has 5 left.

Mauro realizes that he’ll die here.

He considers going for the door. He doesn’t have enough actions this round to open it and would just block the way for his grandchildren.

He can bellow a warning.

“THERE IS A GHOST IN BRIDGEFRONT PASSING THROUGH WALLS AND KILLING PEOPLE, CALL THE GUARD GET A CLERIC GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!”

It hurts his throat but that doesn't seem to matter.

Round 12 (12:01:12)

Poberikender goes for the Gonzales family.

He loaned them five copper once and they couldn’t pay it back. He told them not to worry and it never really bothered him but suddenly it bothers him now.

The humans are awake, but there’s no light on indoors. Poberikender goes right for the man of the house, he’s feeling steamed.

5 damage in the surprise round, Pober loses initiative, his target provokes an attack of opportunity standing up, 3 more damage, Gonzales runs for the door and Poberikender charges him down.

But the door is now open, and the other human in the room flees through it and downstairs (provoking an attack, but Poberikender misses).

Round 12 (12:01:12)

Rodica goes for the household of five. They don’t have a lamp burning either.

Rodica kills a helpless child as a full round action. It’s a lot more fun from this side of the interaction.

Round 13 (12:01:18)

The Gaels run away (a full round action), stopping where a corner ends their move. Tavian provokes an attack of opportunity; as he’s running he can’t use acrobatics to dodge it.

But it misses anyway, as Ali rolls a five.

Ali doesn’t pursue. He wants to drain the living, but he’s also scared and lonely and maybe if he waits here his parents will come back.

Round 13 (12:01:18)

The Silanus household flees as far as they can in six seconds – all except Mauro Silanus, and his brave ten year old grandaughter (who was first to the door, and opened it with her standard). Mauro is hardly going to withdraw while his daughter holds the door for him, so he screams at her to run while he takes the total defense action. For this round, his armor class is 12.

Ooljee rolls an eight on the d20 and adds four. Mauro has one point of strength remaining.

Round 13 (12:01:18)

“THERE IS A GHOST IN BRIDGEFRONT PASSING THROUGH WALLS TO KILL PEOPLE, CALL THE GUARD GET A CLERIC GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!”

Poberikender’s household of 3 shares a building with a household of 7+, all of whom heard old man Silanus’s shouted warning and all of whom heard their housemates’ screams cut short. They rush into the hallways and stairwells, though in six frantic seconds none make it to the street outside.

Poberikender has his pick of prey. He chooses the slowest laggard; a venerable old woman. He deals 2 points of strength damage out of her 4 strength total.

Round 13 (12:01:18)

“THERE IS A GHOST IN BRIDGEFRONT PASSING THROUGH WALLS TO KILL PEOPLE, CALL THE GUARD GET A CLERIC GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!

Seeing her prey alerted, Rodica moves to cut them off at the door. When someone comes to open it, they take her readied attack, and then trying to open the door gives her an AoO as well. The first misses (on a 1), the second hits (on a 4 – humans can’t see in the dark). She deals a single point of strength damage, because dice hate shadows.

The inhabitants elect to exit instead through the window.

Round 14 (12:01:24)

Ooljee finishes off Mauro.

Round 14 (12:01:24)

Poberikender deals three more damage to his venerable target, dropping her dead.

Sepedy Gonzales makes it to the street.

Round 14 (12:01:24)

Rodica charges her quarry, dealing 6 more points of strength damage, and takes her attack of opportunity when he tries squeezing through the window, dealing another 3 and killing him.

But his daughter Beri Ellen made it to the roof.

In three rounds of combat, four shadows became eight.

Round 15 (12:01:30)

Sepedy Gonzales takes off running. She needs to find the Guard.

She considers cutting up Garrison Hill to the Military Academy, but… going uphill, away from the probably-safer-mainland, to rally some trainees? She’d rather go lengthwise down Old Korvosa. There’s always a patrol at the Old Dock at this hour, so that’s the absolute farthest she’ll need to go.

4,000 feet to the Old Dock, over a level road, call it six and a half minutes to run. She hopes it doesn’t take as long as that.

(Technically to ‘hustle’ rather than run – Pathfinder creatures, unless they’re undead, mostly can’t run for longer than a minute.)

Round 15 (12:01:30)

Beri Ellen is a Shingles runner born and raised. She’ll take the bandit’s highway towards the mainland, looking for a cleric; as birds fly the nearest are the Temple of Asmodeus, and since Asmodeans prep at dusk they’ll even still have magic.

(Though, since she’s not quite a bird, and it’d be slower to divert and cross at Eel’s End, she’ll have to swim the Narrows at its widest point. Hopefully there aren’t reefclaws.)

2,500 feet to the Temple of Asmodeus, half of it over difficult terrain, and a swim in the middle, let’s call it a touch under 6 minutes.

It has been one minute and thirty seconds since Ooljee first attacked. Korvosans don't waste time.

Round 20 (12:02:00)

Ooljee and the Andris inform the new shadows that shadows must kill everyone in Korvosa, and to pass this message along to all other shadows. Most of them mostly get it, but not all.

Some of them were very young children. Others want to become single-room hikkomori. Still others have quirks unique to them as individuals.

When a shadow commands its spawn the spawn are supernaturally compelled to obey, but some of them backtalk first, or don't understand. A small fraction will need to be taken by the hand and dragged to where the prey is.

But they can figure it out from there.

While that was going on, Rodica collected Ali from where the silly goober was hiding in a room instead of killing all the Korvosans; she thinks she’ll need to keep an eye on the little creature.

If that's well in hand, Ooljee is heading out. Shadows are faster than humans, and never have to pause for breath.

Racing up the Narrows and Jeggare to the West Dock will take her thirty seconds.

Round 21 (12:02:06)

Round 22 (12:02:12)

Round 23 (12:02:18)

Korvosa is the largest city in Varisia.

It is home to 16,621 humans,

739 dwarves,

371 elves,

369 halflings,

184 half-elves,

186 “other”,

and, as of today – the 13th of Neth, 4407 AR –, sixteen shadows.

Korvosa is ten doublings away from 16,364 shadows.

To kill their victim will typically take a shadow less than 25 seconds. For their victim to spawn as a shadow, an average of 15 seconds.

Call it five rounds on average for a new shadow to receive its orders. To lay eyes on a new victim in the crowded rowhouses and packed streets of Korvosa will take zero rounds in the median case, less than a round on average. Assume another five rounds lost to friction or dawdling at some point in the process.

Absent intervention, shadows will double in number every minute and a half.

We'll double them next on Round 30, for ease of math.

Round 25 (12:02:30)

Ooljee reaches the West Dock. It has been one minute since Beri and Sepedy started running.

Round 30 (12:03:00)

Three minutes into the attack. There are 32 shadows in Bridgefront and 2 in Midland.

Round 45 (12:04:30)

Two minutes since the runners started running. There are 64 shadows in Bridgefront and 4 in Midland.

Round 60 (12:06:00)

128 shadows around Bridgefront, 8 in Midland.

Hey, Ooljee, betcha that by now some Bridgefront shadows have crossed the Narrows.

But have fun doing what you're doing.

huff huff

The Korvosan Guard isn’t some petty neighborhood watch; it’s the largest military force in Varisia.

(Since there are only 700 guardsmen, this might say more about Varisia than it does the Guard.)

But that doesn’t mean that there are 700 soldiers walking the beat at 12 AM on this the thirteenth of Neth.

Not all guardsmen are from Korvosa nor are they stationed in Korvosa; garrisons of the Korvosan Guard protect the city-state’s holdings from Meldraine to Sirathu. Outside of Korvosa, the largest single garrison is stationed in Melfesh – from which they police rebellious Biston and communist Abken. (Source: Guide to Korvosa.)

The Pathfinder Gamemastery Guide suggests that a city watch should consist of 1% the settlement’s adult population.

This city is watched by more than just the Guard: they also headquarter the Sable Company and Order of the Nail.

But Korvosa is a pretty militarized society, so we'll say that on top of the other city-guarding organizations 2% of adult Korvosans are employed by the Korvosan Guard.

There are 246 guardsmen within the city walls.

Again according to the Gamemastery Guide, a city guard works three eight hour shifts – midmorning to evening, evening to midnight, midnight to midmorning. The two nighttime shifts rate a touch more muscle than the daytime one – 35% of the guard versus 30%.

We do six overlapping shifts to minimize gaps in coverage, but you have the basic shape of it right.

So of the 246 guardsmen in the city, 86 are awake at this hour.

87.

Of them, 69 are walking the beat, and the other eighteen behind desks or standing at posts. Guards patrol in units of 2d4[1], leaving fourteen groups to canvas the city. Two patrol the East Shore, two South Korvosa, seven within the mainland’s main walls, and three patrol Old Korvosa.

Moving at a sustainable pace, each patrol moves 400 feet per minute.

To hear the sound of combat is a perception DC of negative ten, we’ll say someone deliberately shouting for help is 10 lower. Guards tend to have +3 on their perception checks, but some have much higher and all 2d4 of them get a roll. They take a -1 penalty for every ten feet and a -10 penalty for every wall between them and the source of the noise – all said they’re likely to notice something’s wrong when their patrol puts them within 400 feet of the growing catastrophe – the noise of which spreads towards the Old Dock at the speed of a running humanoid and in all other directions at the speed of a human double-moving over difficult terrain.

-

1. According to the Guide to Korvosa's random encounter tables.↩

Guards! Guards!

Round 61 (12:06:06)

The patrol runs to meet Sepedy, taking position between her and any pursuers while she shares the story.

Corroborating screams and fleeing townsfolk are hot on her heels.

Meanwhile, near the West Dock, another patrol is alerted. A stroke of luck for Midland - you wouldn't expect Ooljee's stealthy second front to be caught this soon.

Round 62 (12:06:12)

Every patrol of the Korvosan Guard[1] carries one or more loud bugles easily heard by everyone indoors within a mile and out of doors within Korvosa.

-

1. Source: that's the way I'd do it. ↩

Watch Sergeant Verik Vancaskerkin makes the perform (wind instruments) check to play the tune for “oh god oh god, we need so very much backup”.

It's a simple tune, and they've drilled it extensively.

From Midland sounds a similar signal song.

I need coffee. And lesser restoration.

This is going to be another all-nighter.

If the Guard patrolling Korvosa’s narrow streets beneath the Shingles is Varisia’s largest military force, the Sable Company Marines in the sky above are Varisia’s most elite. The Sable Company posts eyes and spies from Nidal to the Nolands, keeping tabs and making preemptive strikes on smugglers, pirates, and Shoanti.

But when Korvosans think of the Sable Company, they don’t think of undercover operatives in Riddleport or Magnimar – they think of rangers on hippogriffs soaring high above the city and bay.

Two hundred marines sleep in the city’s great tower, which is two-thirds of the force sum total, which implies that there are at least 200 marines in the city right now – let’s say 246, another 2% of Korvosa's adult population – which at this late hour implies seventy hippogriffs on the wing within four hours at an easy pace of their aerie (35 units of 1d3 rangers within 32 miles of Korvosa).

Even if they’re all within two hours of Korvosa (16 miles), many will be at first too far afield to hear the signal horn. But when those who hear it echo the tune, the skies of Varisia resound with alarm. Recalling a ranger will take but a few moments.

Zero moments. It will take zero moments.

I keep a squad of marines in the air above Old Korvosa at all times.

And the noise should wake the rangers in the Tower; they sleep in their armor.

You don’t command the Sable Company. They answer only to the seneschal of Castle Korvosa, as a check on the power of the monarchy and Korvosan Guard.

Details.

Round 65 (12:06:30)

Endrin Island is a semicircle roughly a mile long, but the guards blew their horn at about the mid-point of the island, which unsurprisingly is also where the hippogriffs are flying. Three Sable Company Marines land on the scene with the Guard and demand a situation report.

A ranger also lands in Midland.

Thank you for hovering, MOTHER.

WHAT do you WANT FROM me?

Round 66 (12:06:36)

"Ghosts," says Verik Vancaskerkin, "that spread their curse like wights. They shout 'all Korvosans must die.' Dozens at last sighting. Now... maybe a hundred."

"Hear the horns? Maybe hundreds."

Although rangers get a lot of skill ranks to play with, none present have taken knowledge (religion) (which, as a matter of convention, also covers the undead). But everyone knows that if there are undead, you should get a priest. “Sostens, go the the temple of Pharasma, Vassus, the bank of Abadar. I’m told you can cut an angry spirit with a magic sword, I’ll see what magic arrows do.”

As he flies to where the danger is, Rutio casts magic fang, plays a signal tune to bring the Sable Company to his position and takes the lid off his everburning torch to make that position more visible.

The Midland ranger does much the same.

Before Combat If able, a hippogriff-mounted marine casts magic fang on his mount before engaging in combat.

During Combat A Sable Company elite marine fights from atop his mount when possible, combining his hippogriff attacks with his own shortbow composite longbow attacks. He focuses on favored enemies first, unless an obviously greater threat presents itself.

Morale When protecting innocents or defending a fallen comrade, a Sable Company marine fights to the death. Otherwise, he withdraws if reduced to less than half his hit points. If a fellow marine goes down, he attempts to pull that marine to safety as soon as possible, as long as other comrades are still up.

Round 71 (12:07:06)

With a 100 foot fly speed, Rutio is soon flying over the panicked crowds of Bridgefront. Hippogriffs are much faster than wizardflight, though they can’t ascend as steeply. If he counts on ghosts not being any faster than wizards, he figures he can stay within the second range increment of his longbow without fear of being charged.

Unfortunately, shadows at the ground 130 feet or more from him have +25 or more to stealth. He can only spot one if it leaps out of the darkness and attacks someone in the street, at which point he can start launching arrows that do a pathetic 1d8+3 damage divided by two. For however many seconds the shadow stands there being shot at before deciding to run and hide, or just phase through a wall or into the ground.

I can launch four of those arrows in six seconds.

And, this is Pathfinder, not 3.5 – Sable Company marines should have Deadly Aim.

With the penalty to hit I’m not actually sure you’d do more damage.

Hrmmn. Mounted Archery maybe isn’t the greatest feat for circling in one spot full attacking shadows. I could swap it out. Run the numbers with and without Deadly Aim so I know what I’m buying?

The formula for how many rounds it takes for a marine to kill a shadow is a mite more complicated than for shadows killing humans. The marines make four attacks per round (with 6 Base Attack Bonus, and Rapid Shot and Multishot – one of those attacks is made at a -5 penalty and another can’t critically hit) and longbows do x3 damage on critical hits. All said the formula looks like: 2h(d+3cd)+hd+(h-0.25)(d+3cd) all divided by two (because shadows take half damage), all divided by the shadow’s hitpoints.

In the second range increment of the longbow, without penalties for the mount double-moving, without Deadly Aim, h = 0.6, d = 7.5, the shadow’s hitpoints are 19, the ranger deals roughly 8.9 damage per full attack and it takes three of those to drop a shadow.

With Deadly Aim, h = 0.5, d = 11.5, the Ranger does an average of 11.1 damage per round and it takes two full attacks to drop a shadow.

The Sable Company marines would definitely have Deadly Aim, and I’m offended you ever suggested otherwise. Just because we’re mounted archers, you’d give us Mounted Archery? Absurd. The most important skill for a marine to have is the ability to circle sedately in the air full attacking foes with 15 AC or less.

Round 72 (12:07:12)

Little Ali Andri, now a shadow, jumps a 7 strength old woman in the street and deals 5 points of strength damage. Rutio takes his readied attack, deals 6 damage. They roll initiative, the ranger wins. Full attacks, but Ali survives.

A different shadow might have taken cover, or finished off the commoner and then taken cover, but baby Ali Andri is possessed with a keener mind for tactics: he decides to fly erratically in dead panic.

Round 73 (12:07:18)

Rutio full attacks the damaged shadow and annihilates it.

He readies another action.

Ali Andri's murderous CE soul is judged and found wanting.

Rodica Andri, lurking high in the Shingles, has taken notice of Rutio.

She isn't happy.

Round 74 (12:07:24)

Rodica takes the run action and is now adjacent to Rutio.

Rutio takes his readied attack against her, rolls max damage and deals 6 out of her 19 hitpoints.

The hippogriff will attack with a magic fang’d beak against Rodica’s flatfooted AC and somehow miss (standard action). Then, in an attempt to move away without provoking an attack of opportunity, the hippogriff rolls an acrobatics check against DC 17, which it fails spectacularly (move action).

Round 75 (12:07:30)

Rutio negates Rodica’s attack with Mounted Combat, no sweat. He can block one attack made against his mount per round, if he succeeds at a ride skill check.

He full attacks, in his first range increment, and leaves Rodica with 2 HP.

There are 255 shadows in Bridgefront and environs surrounding, though soon to be 254.

16 in Midland.

Though it makes increasingly little sense to divide the shadows as belonging to one district or another.

This is maybe getting out of hand.

Round 76 (12:07:36)

Rodica charges Rutio and deals 2 strength damage out of his 14 point total.

Hippogriff attacks and misses again. Wings away, fails another acrobatics check, Rutio negates the AoO with Mounted Combat, one more arrow and Rodica dies.

A lifetime of kindness and local charity is more than outweighed by tonight’s murder spree. As a general rule, CE souls go to the Abyss.

Unless they follow Gorum, who lives in Elysium with all his faithful.

Wow, that seems kind of unfair.

Get yourself a god who looks out for you.

Hey, Rutio, good thing you stopped those attacks of opportunity, huh?

I don't see that it would have been a big deal either way.

Hippogriffs are large-sized quadrupeds with 15 strength. Their light load is 198 lbs. How much do you weigh with all your gear, Rutio? Is it more than 173 lbs? (I added it up; unless you weigh less than 130 lbs it totally is.)

I hope you never find yourself riding a hippogriff with 14 strength.

That’s an old rule, from D&D 3.5.

In Pathfinder, flying creatures don’t need to stay under their light load limit.

Most flying creatures don’t, but flying mounts can’t fly in medium or heavy barding.

I must have missed the place in the rules where it says rangers count as armor. Maybe you can point it out to me.

Core Rulebook, chapter 7, page 169: “A medium or heavy load counts as medium or heavy armor for the purpose of abilities or skills that are restricted by armor.”

That's convoluted.

That's Pathfinder.

Round 77 (12:07:42)

"Fly, Cloudy, take us up!"

In the third range increment of your longbow, it'll take three rounds on average to dispatch a shadow.

Meanwhile you can't even start unless you spot a shadow and it jumps someone, at which point there it will take fewer than three rounds for the shadow to conclude their attack.

The other rangers will get here soon. Hundreds of marines to flatten the curve and buy time.

Not a lot of time. You're launching 4 arrows a round. How sustainable a pace is that, for you?

Sable Company marines carry four hundred arrows each.

That’s ten times what’s listed in Pathfinder Chronicles: Guide to Korvosa.

The book's wrong. 400 is the correct number.

That's sixty pounds in arrows.

Thanks for reminding me that the hippogriffs all wear Muleback Cords.

And they carry a thousand arrows, plus all the mundane gear Paizo’s ever printed.

Does that mean I can fly back down into my second range increment?

It does! And you absolutely should. If you want to be eaten by shadows.

Fair enough. I'll stay up here with all my Strength.

Round 78 (12:07:48)

It has been 96 seconds since the tooting of Verik Vancaskerkin's horn.

Korvosans don't waste time.

The half-dozen Sable Company marines on the wing within 3,000 feet of Bridgefront are now on the scene shooting at shadows.

They won't turn the tide.

But 176 of them startled awake[1] and now streaming from the Great Tower might.

-

1. 96 seconds is a comparable nighttime turnout time to Earth firefighters[2], who get fancy poles to slide down and don't need to wrangle sleepy hippogriffs. ↩

2. Clackamas Fire Department was averaging 89 seconds for nighttime turnouts in 2003: https://apps.usfa.fema.gov/pdf/efop/efo36539.pdf ↩

The Great Tower is directly across the Narrows from Bridgefront. Leaving their aerie they're already on the scene.

183 hippogriffs and 183 marines against 255 shadows.

Rutio uses the stats for an "elite" Sable Company marine (with some modifications like swapping out his shortbow for a better weapon and changing his hippogriff out for a Bestiary 1 version[1]).

It'd be pretty strange if two percent of Korvosa's adult population were sixth-level rangers with thousands of gp in gear.

However, the Guide to Korvosa doesn't give us the stats for non-elite units. So, whatever, everyone's an elite.

In an open, well-lit demiplane without anything to hide behind, this fight would last about four rounds.

But they're fighting for the slums of Korvosa at 12:07 AM.

Shadows on the ground have +25 to stealth, and are effectively invisible unless they jump someone in plain view.

If shadows wait ten rounds between victims, the rangers too must wait.

Trigonometry and Korvosa's tall buildings prevent focused fire; walls block line of effect, and without Mounted Archery they're unlikely to hit with any of their attacks on a round that their hippogriff repositions. Only marines near enough to directly above can even take a shot. Further: if the shadow jumps into a packed street, the crowd provides cover: +4 AC and Korvosan collateral damage. This reduces the marines' average damage per round to 3.9 points of a shadow's 19 hitpoints[2]. Six rounds to drop a shadow. And at any time that shadow can just leave, ghosting through a wall or into the ground.

The Company is playing catch-and-release, and while sometimes they contribute damage to a shadow caught by someone else down the line, damaged shadows can also just stick around indoors or under eaves, or ghost away to a different part of the city. A shadow is as fast as a tiger at the hundred meter dash over level terrain; at overland travel they outpace even hippogriffs.

If in the next minute and a half every ranger had five rounds with a visible target, and if every single point of damage deal by a Sable Company marine were perfectly allocated, they could kill at most 33 shadows.

Instead they'll kill five.

-

1. Pathfinder and D&D 3.5 do animal companions in very different ways and I don't care to make the conversion. (Paizo already took a stab at converting it but you can't actually ride the thing until level 6 or 7 and it takes a gazillion feats.) So I'm just using hippogriff stats from the Bestiary, and saying the rangers took the other option for Hunter's Bond instead of an animal companion. ↩

2. 3.5 damage with Deadly Aim. ↩

You can't have Mounted Archery back, you traded it out. It's my feat now. Have fun with Deadly Aim.

This is curtains for Korvosa, right? We can call it here, eight minutes into the attack?

Don't count your chickens yet.

Round 78 (12:07:48)

It has been six minutes and eighteen seconds since Beri Ellen set out for the Temple of Asmodeus. She has since arrived.

The temple is an incredibly tacky building shaped like a pentagram, painted garish white and red like Saint Nicholas's candy-cane workshop with a big red stained-glass dome in the middle. My best guess at the proximal cause is the architect was secretly a Caydenite.

Round 78 (12:07:48)

It has been one minute and twelve seconds since Vassus left for the Bank of Abadar. He has since arrived.

The temple towers over surrounding buildings, made of gleaming marble and bronze. A windswept griffon looks out of place patiently perched on the steep stair.

Round 78 (12:07:48)

It has been one minute and twelve seconds since Sostens left for the Grand Cathedral of Pharasma.

...

He's working on it, okay?

It's clear on the other side of town.

In the first printing of Curse of the Crimson Throne: Seven Days to the Grave, F. Wesley Schneider wrote, “Page 138 of the DMG presents a way to determine how many characters of each class reside in a city. According to this method, the average population of a large city like Korvosa includes 3 12th-level clerics, 6 6th-level clerics, 12 3rd-level clerics, and 24 1st-level clerics.”

(In that very book the player characters slay no fewer than seventeen cleric cultists of Urgathoa, but presumably they don’t count.)

Korvosans aren't a terribly religious bunch[1]. Nonetheless, they're better favored by the gods than the Dungeon Master’s Guide V 3.5 would have you believe. Plenty of clerics don't directly work at any of Korvosa's seven temples - we won't count them against the city's 47. And because the Pantheon of Many is a silly place, neither will we count its 17+ clerics. 

-

1. Guide to Korvosa, Page 45.↩

Korvosa has seven temples. Starting at the top of the city and making our way down:

Old Korvosa: the Temple of Aroden[1]

North Point: Bank of Abadar, Sanctuary of Shelyn

The Heights: Temple of Asmodeus, Temple of Sarenrae

Midland: there are no temples in Midland

East Shore: there are no temples in East Shore

Gray: Grand Cathedral of Pharasma

South Shore: Pantheon of Many

-

1. This one isn't marked on the Redditor's map. ↩

The crumbling temple of Aroden in Old Korvosa has three “pitiful” old clerics; they still hold services but don't have any magic.

Abadarians in North Point include 13th-level (7th-circle) Archbanker Darb Tuttle and 9th-level (5th-circle) Arbiter Zenobia Zenderholm, who doesn’t work at the temple and doesn’t against Korvosa’s 47. To them we'll add 2 6th-level clerics (3rd-circle), four 3rd-level (2nd-circle), and eight 1st-levels (1st-circle).

(Though since 6th-level is a boring level for clerics, we'll drop one down to 5th (still 3rd-circle) and bump the other to 7th (4th-circle).)

The Sanctuary of Shelyn is noted for its slight size; they'll have a 3rd-level cleric and a 1st-level.

The Temple of Asmodeus hosts 11th-level (6th-circle) Archbishop Ornher Reebs – one of Korvosa's three most powerful divine spellcasters. We’ll also give them a 6th-level (3rd-circle), two 3rd-levels (second circle), four 1st-levels.

The Temple of Sarenrae, we'll give a 7th-level (4th-circle), a 3rd-level (2nd-circle), and 3 1st-levels.

Pharasma’s Grand Cathedral has 13th-level (7th-circle) Bishop Keppira D’Bear, tied with Tuttle for most powerful cleric in Korvosa. We’ll also give them a 7th-level (4th-circle), a 5th-level (3rd-circle), four 3rd-levels (2nd-circle), and eight first-level clerics.

That makes 47.

The Pantheon of Many is rather an odd building. The city's newest temple, and by some measures its grandest, is situated in South Shore - the city's newest district, inhabited mainly by Korvosa's nouveuau riche. The giant building has shrines for 17 of Golarion's most popular gods:

Erastil,

Iomedae,

Torag,

Shelyn,

Sarenrae,

Desna,

Cayden Cailean,

Abadar,

Irori,

Gozreh,

Nethys,

Pharasma,

Calistria,

Asmodeus,

Zon-Kuthon,

Norgorber,

and

Urgathoa

all under one roof.

Each shrine is attended by a cleric who holds services for the faithful and performs ceremonies under the watchful eye of “a pair of impartial observers”. Logically there must be at least seventeen clerics who work at the temple, though it's got to be an atypical cleric that takes the job and I’ve seen no indication that any of them are particularly high level. Let’s call it a 6th-level, four 3rd-levels, and twelve 1st-levels.

The clerics of Asmodeus sleep in the temple. They already heard the horns and were disturbed, so when Beri Ellen arrives at 12:07 AM they're awake and ready to receive her.

A knowledge (religion) check identifies tonight's terror from its description - undead shadows.

Unlike Korvosa’s less overtly sketchy religious organizations, Asmodean clergy pray for spells at dusk, and have plenty of magic in the tank.

Useful magic, they’ve in smaller supply.

Like most clerics who sell their spells for a living, the Asmodeans don't fill all their spellslots in one go – most are left open for whatever spell someone comes in willing to pay for. An empty slot takes fifteen minutes to fill, there won't be time for that.

They do have some spells prepared - ones that they might need in a hurry, or that were commissioned in advance. Shadows aren't much inconvenienced by spells like make whole and remove disease, but cure wounds can hurt them.

At least a little bit.

Until the Asmodeans run out of those spells.

After three or four rounds of casting.

But the forces of Lawful Evil will have to make do with what paltry positive energy they've prepared, and any scrolls that they happen to have on hand...

As it turns out, they have rather a few scrolls on hand.

Here's 10,000 gp in subsidized high-level scrolls for every Korvosan temple with a cleric as can cast from them. And anyone who manages to burn them all defending the city tonight can expect a cash bonus as would palpitate a dragon's heart.

Gray-haired Esuper brings the scroll wheel. Esuper is in no wise a poor man, nor is he poorly compensated, but these scrolls are worth more money than he made in the past twenty years or will in the next. And with them in his sweaty fingers he is intensely aware of that fact.

He hands the Archbishop a 1,650 gp scroll of mage’s decree.

You might think Archbanker Darb Tuttle would be asleep at this hour. He’s not. You might think even with a Ring of Sustenance that he’d be at his home – instead he’s speaking with Vassus on the steps to the Bank of Abadar.

You might think that at 12:07 in the morning, he’d have already cast spells since preparing them last dawn. He hasn’t, excepting of some buffs. You might think that if he hasn’t cast spells, he probably hasn’t loaded spells into most of his spell slots. (Even if against shadows he’d mostly be using cure wounds spells, you still have to prepare a spell before you can spontaneously convert it into positive energy.)

But instead he’s prepared combat spells in all of his slots, and is standing by with four of Korvosa’s higher level characters (two fighters, a wizard, and a rogue), who are also pre-buffed and ready to be teleported into danger.

In another stroke of luck, the Temple of Abadar was robbed last night. The reprobate, for all their criminal prowess, failed a save against Tuttle’s greater scrying. The banker waited until he could prepare new seventh-circle spells, and then waited for nightfall, and then waited a bit longer to find out why so many signal horns are sounding

Someone bring this man a 10,000 gp scroll wheel.

Round 79 (12:07:54)

To non-undead within 11 miles:

"Wraith-like plague shadows spread with orders to kill all in Korvosa. Only magic harms them. Shelter at the Longacre Building or Grand Cathedral."[1]

-

1. This took 6.3 seconds to say: https://www.timeanddate.com/stopwatch/ ↩

Round 80 (12:08:00)

Undeath ward.

Round 81 (12:08:06)

Wind walk.

Round 81 (12:08:06)

Teleport.

The scroll of undeath ward cost 1,125 gp, the windwalk 1,650. The church of Asmodeus is moving out.

If Beri Ellen is Lawful Evil, she’s welcome to take shelter in that part of the temple under the effect of forbiddance.

(For whatever good half of 6d6 damage is worth against shadows with 19 HP.)

If not, she should find somewhere safer to be.

The temple of Asmodeus is in fact the only forbiddanced place in Korvosa - even King Eodred's bedroom needs to be accessible to three corners of the alignment chart. But the Longacre Building and Grand Cathedral of Pharasma are both protected by hallow with death ward, renewed each year for 8,000 gp.

Ignoring the Pathfinder rule that you can't end your turn while sharing your five-foot square, there's standing room in the effect of a hallow for 526 people. Better hurry.

Round 81 (12:08:06)

Finally she's in the loop.

Ground-bound Guards have been running or riding hard since the signal horns began to play, Cressida Kroft among them, but it has literally been less than two minutes. None outside Verik Vancaskerkin's unit and the Midland patrol had been able to learn what's the commotion.

The Field Marshall takes six seconds to think.

They are under attack.

She's never heard of shadows attacking a major city; there's a necromancer behind this.

Urgathoan? No, Shoanti.

Eodred, you utter fool.

The shadows are supported by Shoanti fighters and spellcasters.

By the lights and sounds in the sky, the Sable Company left their tower and immediately engaged or were engaged by the enemy.

Which means shadows are widespread in the city.

She heard horns from Midland, before they ominously stopped. There's a marine in the sky there with an everburning torch.

If Cressida Kroft attacked Korvosa with undead shadows, she'd start the attack in Midland; centrally located, no temples, no military buildings.

But no one in between has called a warning. Maybe shadows aren't that widespread.

Here's a theory: someone from Midland was eaten by a shadow, rose as spawn, was ordered to murder Korvosans. They flew off to Bridgefront out of personal animus.

Or the attack began with two shadows, in two places, to be more sure it would succeed. Old Korvosa is the second-softest target.

Most in the Korvosan Guard don't have magic weapons. They need to fall back.

Even with magic weapons, she knows of less than a half-dozen clerics in Korvosa who can cast death ward and protect against a shadow's touch.

Cressida Kroft is a 9th level fighter (and first level Aristocrat). She has 14 STR, the same she had as a level 1 cadet.

The Hellknights carry magic weapons, but there are less than twenty[1] in Korvosa tonight.

Citadel Vraid is too far away to have heard the mage's decree. She'll send a rider. The Hellknights can't get here in time to matter but she might as well send a rider.

Someone who can use 4th-circle divine scrolls should send to the Grand Lodge in Absalom, hire adventurers. That'll take 11 minutes and more.

Can she teleport instead. Who can cast the spell... Darb Tuttle, Zenobia Zenderhelm, Academae professors and some students.

Tuttle won't be home after that mage's decree. None of them will. Sending, then.

Anything else that could help...

Her friend Vencarlo has 9 strength, a magic sword, and lives in Old Korvosa. It'd be like him to have run in by now and died.

Damn it.

Maybe the Shoanti will kill King Eodred. She'll try and stop them, of course, but, it could happen.

And his wife would take the throne and she's teenage diabolist in thrall to foreign powers.

Probably that's worse.

Maybe it's worse.

Well, realistically, how bad a Queen could Ileosa be[2]?

-

1. https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2ijuo?Korvosan-Hellknights ↩

2. Quite[3]. ↩

3. For existing scholarship on this much studied subject, see Curse of the Crimson Throne volumes I through VI. ↩

Round 75 (12:07:30)

A DC 15 knowledge (local) check will identify the respected Vencarlo Orisini, of House Orisini, master of Orisini Academy, as one of Korvosa's more dangerous fighters.

Fewer know him as Blackjack, vigilante hero of the common people.

From behind his mask Blackjack has protected Korvosa for over 200 years, sometimes vanishing for decades but always appearing in the city's hour of greatest need. Some suspect him of belonging to a long-lived race, of being an elf or an azata. Most believe Blackjack to be a procession of men, each generation training their successor. This is the case. When Vencarlo of House Orisini took up the sword of Raneiro his predecessor, he wedded Blackjack's scrappy streetwisdom to words which echo in the halls of power.

Now that he's old, and starting to slow down, Vencarlo Orisini is actively looking for a protege, as yet unsuccessfully. Two students had the talent, but he found neither had the heart. If Vencarlo dies tonight that's the end of Blackjack's story.

Ever the type to leap into danger to defend the lives of others, the swashbuckling vigilante (well, actually a Fighter 5 / Rogue 2 / Duelist 2) – equipped with magic armor, a dex-boosting belt, and a +2 keen rapier, finds himself in a duel with one (1) shadow.

Shouldn't be hard; he's level 9 and it's CR 3.

Vencarlo gets a surprise round (though he loses initiative). Charging from hiding he almost can't miss.

Since he doesn't have Power Attack, and against a shadow divides his damage by two, Vencarlo won't do a lot of damage.

Pathfinder characters get more feats.[1] I say one of those feats should be Power Attack.

-

1. In Pathfinder you choose a feat every other level, where in D&D 3.5 you get a feat every third level. So while the 6th-level Sable Company marines didn't gain feats from their conversion to Pathfinder, Vencarlo does. ↩

You need 13 Strength to qualify for the feat.

Besides, with the penalty to hit I'm not sure Power Attack would even do more damage -

Hrmm. Could you run the numbers both ways so I know what -

As entertaining as doing all that again would be, I'm afraid you don't qualify for the feat.

Round 75 (12:07:30)

For damage he rolls 1d6+1d6+6.[1] That's fifteen damage. Divided by two (and rounded down), it's seven.

-

1. It's a +2 rapier, he has Weapon Training 1, but a penalty to Strength, Weapon Specialization adds +2, Precise Strike adds another +2, Sneak Attack adds 1d6. The d6s rolled 4 and 5. ↩

Out of the shadow's 19 hitpoints.

What's Vencarlo's touch AC?

While fighting defensively with Combat Expertise, 19.

Round 75 (12:07:30)

If you choose to take a -7 penalty to hit I'm going to start making you actually roll for that.

The shadow rolls 13 on the d20 and adds four, 17. Swing and a miss.

Round 75 (12:07:30)

No more sneak attack, but now Vencarlo can make two attacks in a round.

He has a +15/+10 bonus to hit with his rapier, or rather +8/+3. Neither attack hits.

Round 76 (12:07:36)

Shadow rolls a 12 on the die, +4 is 16, but Vencarlo dodges. 19 touch AC is pretty much as high as it gets, in Korvosa.

Round 76 (12:07:36)

On this keen rapier, an 18 and 17 both threaten critical hits! Though only the first confirms. Together they deal... 12 points of damage, reducing old man Mauro Silanus to 0 HP!

If you didn't want to go to the Abyss, you should have tried harder not to get eaten by shadows.

Hey, Blackjack, give me a Perception check.

Rolled a 20. So. 19.

What's your flat-footed AC against touch attacks?

10.

Round 76 (12:07:36)

Take a point of strength damage.

Round 77 (12:07:42)

Vencarlo wheels to face the shadow that rushed him and strikes at it twice. Both miss.

Round 78 (12:07:48)

Sometimes shadows roll 17s, too. Does a 21 hit your touch AC?

Yes.

Take six points of strength damage.

Round 78 (12:07:48)

Vencarlo has 2 strength left. His sword and leather armor make for a heavy load; his armor class drops by 3.

He attacks twice. Two critical threats, both confirm. With his strength penalty, they do 4 damage and 5.

Nine points of damage out of the shadow's 19 HP.

Round 79 (12:07:54)

A 17 hits, for 1 point of damage.

Round 79 (12:07:54)

That puts him above his heavy load. Vencarlo falls prone in the mud.

He can still attack, albeit with a -4 penalty.

Both strikes hit, for 5 combined damage.

Round 80 (12:08:00)

Even prone and encumbered, he's still Vencarlo fucking Orisini.

A 6 to hit won't touch him.

Round 80 (12:08:00)

Vencarlo lands an attack for 2 points of damage. In three more damage the shadow will die and Blackjack can drag himself away.

Round 81 (12:08:06)

It was close.

You fought hard.

But take 5 points of strength damage.

These things are CR 3??

Ostensibly.

If a dex-based fighter like Vencarlo can fight two shadows one at a time, roll four critical hits[1], and still lose, what hope is there for the rest of us?

Cressida Kroft has a touch AC of 10. The moment a shadow tags her she'll stop qualifying for Power Attack and do even less damage than Vencarlo did. She can't even take more hits than Vencarlo did; her Strength is 5 higher but she's wearing fifty more pounds of equipment she can't quickly doff. When her strength drops from 14 to 5 she'll be immobilized in her armor.

The Korvosan Guard has emergency wands of mage armor, distributed to their handful of wizards, but that won't bring anyone's AC higher than Vencarlo's was without it.

If they had wands of shield as well, for 10 glorious rounds she could have 18 touch AC. Still lower than Vencarlo's was. If they put those spells on a character with as high dexterity as Vencarlo without his belt, and that character is aware of the shadow and ready for it, and fighting defensively, the shadow would still land attacks when it rolls 18, 19, or 20. If two shadows attack at once, they hit on 16 and 17 too. And if a shadow charges from hiding, they hit on a 12. (On a 10, if the shadow charges into the flanks of an ongoing fight.)

It's certainly possible to get your touch AC higher than this, and even your flat-footed touch AC. But not scalably and not in a hurry. You have to tailor your build for it, have expensive items, or be a monster from the Bestiary.

-

1. The reader RationalMoron points out that as incorporeal undead shadows should be immune to critical hits and Sneak Attack. ↩

Five clerics she knows of who can cast death ward. Can anyone in Korvosa melee against shadows without it?

Maybe if secretly living in Korvosa there were an entire family of native outsiders - ten of them or more - with good Strength and great Dexterity, magic weapons, third-circle sorcerer casting, who all knew shield and mage armor, at least two of them with class levels and the strongest of whom wears a +3 ring of protection. Maybe they could put up a fight.

If only there were such a group of people living in secret from me, Cressida Kroft, to whom many things in Korvosa are as yet unknown.

Especially if they already lived on Endrin Island, and just had to run down Garrison Hill to take their pick of targets.

The Korvosan Guard is the second most Abadaran organization on Golarion, after the literal Church of Abadar. If a family of native outsiders came out of hiding to defend the city, and the city survived, we'd pay them so much you could never finish spending it.

If only such a family secretly existed.

The sort of thing I am doesn't get an afterlife plane when it dies.

When humans die, we're damned to the Abyss.

My sympathy runs as deep as the Jeggare.

It's a shallow river.

Not a dry ditch.


But yeah.

Pretty shallow.

Glorio, I know you're a good man.

That's the alignment I shelled out for.

On the scale of commitment to the bit, where one is “ever does good deeds”, and ten is “heroically charges hundreds of shadows with third level spells and a +2 kukri”, this particular rogue is something like a two or three.

Pack it in, boys, or rather, pack it out – get all our shit on boats, the Arkonas are leaving Korvosa.

Look, I'm sorry.

Yeah.

Alright.

I'm sorry too.

Have a Good life.

[Cressida Kroft has disconnected.]
[Pseudohypothetical chat ends.]

Round 82 (12:08:12)

She'll take six more seconds to think.

Round 82 (12:08:12)

The streets of Old Korvosa are packed with panicked Old Korvosans; it's only been a few minutes, and crowds move thirty feet a round. Many haven't even left their homes.

Tuttle air walks up to escape the current, and his three companions follow suit (he cast the communal version of the spell).

No sooner have they risen above the crowd than four ambitious shadows pounce them and are repelled by undeath ward at ten feet.

Darb hadn't cast yet today, other than his buffs. How many spells does that leave him?

Using the 20 point buy array, let’s say Darb has 23 WIS and 14 CHA. (He put his 15 in WIS, +2 for being human, put his 14 in CHA even though putting it in INT seems like it’d make better sense for a finance guy, and he bought a +6 WIS headband – he’s a wealthy dude.)

In terms of spells, he has:

7th – 2

6th – 4

5th – 4

4th – 5

3rd – 6

2nd – 7

1st – 7

spells per day, and 5 uses of Channel Energy.

He can't use melee range cure spells without collapsing his undeath ward. That leaves him 10 mass cure spells above fourth circle. Minus two for teleport and communal airwalk. (Undeath ward was a scroll.)

Each of which can hit up to 13 shadows in theory.

In practice, since none of those shadows can be more than 30 feet apart, he'll be lucky to hit half that number. 5th-circle mass cure light does 17.5 damage on average, with a save for half, so to kill a shadow will take a double dose. 6th-circle mass cure moderate and 7th-circle mass cure serious wounds have a better chance of dropping their targets, but even they won't always.

And then he's got Channel Energy.

At 13th level his channels do 7d6 points of damage, average damage 24.5, thought there's a 10% chance he rolls 18 damage or less.

The DC for Channel Energy isn’t keyed off of a Cleric’s casting stat. Charismatic for a Cleric as Darb may be, his channel is only DC 18. Shadows have Channel Resistance, a +6 bonus to will. They make that save 40% of the time.

0.9 x 0.6 = 54%

Four ambitious shadows pounce them and are repelled by undeath ward at ten feet. Darb channels as a standard action. Two shadows live, two shadows die.

He can do that four more times.

And then cast his eight spells.

And then he can sit on his thumbs until dawn.

-

1. RationalMoron points out that as an Evoker, Salgar Irevotnin in particular should do 5 more points of damage with Intense Spells - on an average roll, just barely enough to kill a shadow. The broader point - that a fireball can't hit two shadows standing on opposite sides of a wide avenue, and that even powerful wizards (Evokers below 10th level, and non-evokers of any level) will not typically kill the shadows they cast fireballs upon - unfortunately stands.

There are spells which mightier wizards than the Dean of Evocation can cast (should they have those evocations prepared) which do more d6s of damage (albeit typically in a much smaller area of effect). But those cones of cold and chains of lightning will be spent even faster than Salgar runs out his <10 fireballs. ↩

The 12th level fighters and rogue in their party make a slightly better showing. Unspecialized in archery, they're worse at it than the Sable Company marines overhead, and have all the same difficulties finding opponents and dropping them. But at point blank range they can kill the two shadows Tuttle damaged, and then look to contribute damage to a shadow some other Korvosan will hopefully take out down the line.

"Yes."

Gods know why she's asking, but then Cressida Kroft is always ten steps ahead of everyone else.

The Field Marshall will come up with a plan, it will work swimingly, and in retrospect it will look like the single obvious thing to do when your city is invaded by shadows.

Toff Ornelos is many things.

Weak of will. Spineless. Cold-hearted. Cruel.

Toff once murdered a wizard who beat him in a fair duel. And then he lost another duel so he did it again. And twice after that. He's maimed or crippled more than forty apprentices, sorcerers, adventurers, and civilians.

In his advanced age the headmaster has begun to make mistakes he finds difficult to explain.

He stole tens of thousands of gold pieces from the Breaching Festival prize pool on the irresponsible assumption that no one would ever win that contest.

And then he rigged the contest for someone to win. (It wasn't his cleverest plan.)

Sure, Toff Ornelos is many things. Among them, he's one of the most powerful wizards in Varisia.

You know Varisia.

It's that place with all those Runelords.

When you reach eighth circle I'll listen to you whine.

He's had a few seconds to think while casting. That's time enough to make a plan.

Round 86 (12:08:36)

Free action to command his unseen servant, move action to accept a proffered scroll of mage's decree. Standard action to cast the spell.

Beneath Korvosa lies a sprawling expanse of labrinthine sewers, Shoanti catacombs, limestone caves, and Thassilonian ruins buried by time, collectively known as the Vaults. Sewers are necessarily porous, but pushing past them somewhere in the Vaults will be defensible tunnels, spacious enough for thousands of Korvosans. Shadows can't pass through any wall thicker than, eh, sevenish feet. Find a tunnel with few outlets, or block a bunch with stone shape, guard the bottlenecks with magic weapons. Voila, a perimeter you can hold.

Good effort, but that doesn't work either. Shadows can just scoot through the walls around the posted guards.

Watch a wizard at work, fool.

To non-undead within 11 miles:

"FLEE DEEP INTO THE VAULTS. SHADOWS CAN'T PASS WALLS TEN FEET THICK. KORVOSAN NECROMANCERS: BIND INCORPOREAL DEFENDERS TO GUARD CHOKEPOINTS FROM WITHIN THE WALLS."

If he'd known his little distraction would go this well, maybe he'd have sent both shadows and made this the main event. There'd be over a thousand in Korvosa now.

This is a lot of power for one second circle cleric of Gorum. It might go to his head.

He's already planning what city he'll destroy next.

Toff Ornelos is Korvosa's most powerful wizard - as far as anyone knows - but he's far from its only wizard.

Page 138 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide V 3.5 presents a way to determine how many characters of each class reside in a city. According to this method, the average population of a large city like Korvosa includes 3 11th-level wizards, 6 5th-level wizards, 12 2nd-level wizards, and 24 1st-level wizards.

Those are rookie numbers. Korvosa laughs at them.

The Academae in Korvosa is more than two hundred years old, founded in 4473 AR by Lord Volshyenek Ornelos, AKA the the Undying Lord Volshyenek Ornelos AKA Lord Volshyenek Ornelos the Eternal. Alas, Volshy was cut down in the prime of his life, at the tender age of 209. But the school lives on.

The Academae is the premier school of magic in Varisia, with a world-wide reputation. It's also a deathtrap. Three in every ten students die.

There are older schools of magic. Schools with more extensive libraries. Halls of learning that better culture the mind. Other wizard colleges produce better-rounded individuals.

Well-rounded individuals who yammer away in coffee shops and wash Korvosa's laundry. The Academae trains wizards.

Give ten years of your life to the Academae, and they will teach you what magic you can learn. Dropping out is not an option, and if after ten years you can't pass their final exam, they give you to the necromancers. You can't graduate unless you're second circle; most make third, many fourth and some even fifth.

Hopefuls are drawn from as far away as Geb and the Mwangi Expanse. Some fail at the entrance exams, others had no intention of even trying and were just attracted to the scene. They apprentice under one of Korvosa's many wizards and get an Academae education second-hand. Or enroll at Theumanexus College, which styles itself as a competitor.

We'll say one in ten adult Korvosans can at least cast cantrips, or 1,230. 615 of them have 1st-circle spells or better, 300 have 3rd, 100 4th. About twenty can cast at 5th-circle; some Academae professors, all eight of the deans, the rare Academae student, and unaffiliateds like the Headmaster of Theumanexus College. At least seven have 6th-circle spells. Toff Ornelos has 7th and 8th.

In terms of spells, if they all had combat spells prepared in all their slots, Korvosa's arcanists would have between them something less than[1]:

8th – 2

7th – 3

6th – 28

5th – 80

4th – 400

3rd – 1,200

2nd – 2,000

1st – 2,460

cantrips – technically infinite

-

1. This an overestimate by almost half-again, since it assumes everyone save Toff Ornelos has four slots for even their highest circles of spell.

If each of the 508 shadows which exist as of 12:09 AM were huddled immovably in a 20 foot radius sphere waiting to die, if each of the 5th level spells were a 10d6 cone of cold and each of the 3rd level spells were a 5d6 fireball, Korvosa's wizards could kill every shadow in the city 319 times over.

Alas, none of that is so.

Let's assume that every round for four rounds 20 fifth-circle wizards, 80 fourth-circle wizards, and 200 third-circles each find five targets clustered together for a fireball (which will take all the third circle arcane spells in Korvosa; it's a good thing they were all prepared and fireballs), further assume that no shadow ever saves against a spell cast by a 5th circle wizard, that the 4th-circle casters all do 8d6, and that the damage is used perfectly efficiently (never, for instance, wasting damage by needing a whole 5d6 fireball to finish off a group reduced to 2 HP).

Korvosa's collective arcanists could deal 9,850 damage, enough for 518 shadows.

You sweet stupid child.

One in eight of Korvosa's wizards are necromancy specialists; that's more than 50 wizards with the feat Command Undead and enough hitdice to control a shadow. Several with enough hitdice to Command multiple shadows, and a small handful with the spell command undead prepared. They'll be enough to protect the Vaults.

As for Toff himself?

He's going to burn Bridgefront down.

Round 91 (12:09:06)

Greater teleport.

Quickened wall of fire.

Oh no.

Round 92 (12:09:12)

Wall of fire.

Quickened fireball.

ORNELOS WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING.

<Toff, dear boy, is it that you've lost your mind?>